


Blight: The Catalyst

by EdolinGray



Series: Project Lazarus [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Apocalypse, F/F, F/M, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Multi, Post-Apocalypse, Sassy, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-21 08:24:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16573055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdolinGray/pseuds/EdolinGray
Summary: A viral epidemic has taken the world by the reins, forcing the infected to take up cannibalism. The Cage siblings, Cassandra, Octavia, and Felix, have been given a secret mission by their uncle before they parted ways; deliver the locket to the CDC at all costs. Three years since, and the trio has been delayed for far too long. Do they still have time to complete the delivery, or will it all be too late?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A prologue to introduce the three main characters and a brief look at the infected. This is my first work on here, so I hope you enjoy!

When you think of the end of the world, most people think of the end as being something from the bible; the horsemen of the apocalypse, fire raining from the sky, Hell’s gates opening to release the demons and monsters trapped inside, etc.

Scientists and astronomers even hypothesized some sort of galactic extinction event involving our galaxy and a neighboring one colliding into a colossal cluster-fuck, effectively killing everything in an instant.

It would have been so much easier if any of those things happened instead of what _really_ went down.

Especially the colliding galaxy’s thing.

The beginning of our story really starts at the end if I’m being honest. No pun intended. The oldest of three siblings at twenty-two years old, my name is Cassandra Cage. I worked at a dead end job at a family owned grocery store in McKinney, Texas, taking care of my younger siblings while our uncle is away.

I clean, make breakfast, and make sure that my siblings, Octavia and Felix, wake up on time to get to their college classes. Besides living with our uncle in his house, we’re pretty much a normal family. Between the three of us siblings, I’m nothing special really. The only things cool I do is take self-defense classes and do self-taught parkour. I go to college classes because our uncle wants us all to succeed in something.

Well, the day everything ended is certainly a day I succeeded is _something_ at least.

Felix and Octavia were already awake by the time I had breakfast ready, and our Uncle was already gone to the police station for work when I woke up early that fateful day. Felix slumped into one of the kitchen chair’s as I fixed him a plate of pancakes, making sure to slather butter all over each one as I piled them on his plate. He grumbled his thanks as Octavia struts in, somehow always chipper early in the mornings.

“Morning nerds!” She greeted us as she made a bee-line for the fridge to gather ingredients for one of her fruit smoothies.

“You seem to be happier than usual. Who are you seeing later today?” I guessed. My sister was never this happy in the mornings unless there was a cute guy or girl involved later in the day.

“Her name is Breanna, she’s from my Comp-Sci class.” She sings, cutting up banana’s, strawberries, and kiwi’s and shoveling them into the blender with milk and ice.

“Isn’t that the chick who hit you with her motorcycle last week?” I ask.

“ _Almost_ hit, and yes! She was super apologetic about the whole ordeal and offered to take me out to Chang’s as an apology!” She shouts over the blender. I wait for a few more minutes until her smoothie is finished to speak again.

“That must be an interesting story to tell your friends. ‘Hey, this is my new girlfriend! She nearly hit me with her motorcycle, it was love at first crash!’” Felix giggled and Octavia stuck her tongue out at him.

“We’re not dating! Jeez, don’t jinx me! I have a good feeling about this one this time!” Octavia defended.

“You said the same thing about Brandon. And Todd. And Jessica. And Alison. And-”

“Okay, okay, I get it! I’m horrible at dating! But at least I’m _trying_!” Octavia pouted as she poured her smoothie into a travel cup. I checked the time on the oven and sighed.

“If you guys don’t leave soon, you’ll be late for class.” I warned them. Octavia nearly choked on her smoothie as Felix inhaled the last of his pancakes. I grabbed their backpacks as they rushed out to the front door, the two of them grabbing the bags and each giving me a quick hug before bolting out the door.

“Bye, love you, I’ll be back later tonight, probably!” Octavia called from her car as Felix jumped into the passenger side, a pancake hanging from his mouth. They both wave goodbye to me as Octavia backs out of the driveway and careens down the street, blasting her music loud enough for me to hear.

It’s a wonder she’s not deaf yet.

I waved them off and sighed, knowing that she’ll probably come home late and drunk. We are absolutely polar opposite sisters. I turned back to go inside to finish getting ready for the day, not looking forward to going into work. You see, a lot of my co-workers have recently been calling in sick for the past week, so I’ve had to start pulling doubles at work, which puts a strain on my college studies.

I got showered and dressed for work, grumbling the entire drive to the store. It was roughly eight in the morning, but it was unusually busy. Dozens of people were coming in, several of them looking sickly, and all of them were stocking up on food, water, and batteries.

Jacob, one of my co-workers, met me at the time-clock.

“You going to get gas anytime soon?” He greeted.

“Excuse me?” I asked, taken aback by his weird question.

“Are you going to be getting fuel? You know, before the crazies take it all?”

“Why would I be doing that…?”

“Uh, have you not seen the news?”

That’s a Texas sized no. I had been avoiding the news for some time, mostly because of my Uncle. I shook my head.

“You probably should get some, even if you don’t need it. People have been freaking out over that virus going around. You might want to get your grocery-shopping done soon too before they take it all!” Jacob said before clocking in for work and heading to his register.

A virus was going around, this was true. But I never really knew just how dangerous it was then. People called in sick, didn’t show up, and I had to cover for them. That’s all that mattered. And as a stocker, my entire day was filled with rude ass customers demanding to know why we don’t have any more water or batteries. We even called to a neighboring store to see if we could get some from them, and even _they_ were out.

I didn’t know what was so bad going on earlier that day. I didn’t know that it would completely change everything I knew about the world. I’m just glad that Uncle Tommy called me on my lunch break to tell me to come straight home after work, and to grab groceries if I still could. On lunch, I grabbed essentials, such as crackers, bread, canned goods – which we were nearly out of – some protein bars, and fruits for Octavia’s breakfast smoothies. I nearly had to stay over three hours before I was finally allowed to leave.

At least this paycheck will be nice with nearly sixty hours of over-time.

I clocked out and headed straight home, like Uncle Tommy told me to. I should have noticed how odd it was, that there were no children out playing since it was a Friday evening. Minster Winston, who was usually out waxing his car or watering his garden, was nowhere to be seen either. I had figured it was because he was sick, too.

I never figured that I would have been right, though.

When I finally got home, I was glad to see that my siblings were already home, Octavia looking beyond pissed as the two of them watched reruns of ‘The Dead That Walk’.

“What’s up, munchkins?” I asked, stress clear on my face from my hard day of work.

“Just relaxing since no one showed up to class. Octavia’s pissed about Uncle Tommy though,” Felix replied, glancing over to our sister, who slumped further into the couch.

“Hell yeah I’m pissed! I’m missing dinner with Breanna tonight because Uncle Tommy’s paranoid as fuck!” Octavia exclaimed, throwing her arms out before she crossed them across her chest again to glare at the TV.

“Looks like you had a fun time at work.” Felix added as he glanced over at me. I heaved a weighty sigh and sunk into the couch with my siblings.

“Yeah, four people called in sick with that crap floating around. Everyone and their dog decided to come to the store and buy us out in the first half of my shift. The rest of my shift was me trying to make sure no one burned the place down.” I complained.

“That sucks...” Octavia muttered and leaned back into the couch to continue the episode. At least she sounded genuine in her sympathies if I looked past the anger at our uncle.

As we watched on, a brief news headline came up during a shaving commercial about the virus that everyone was calling in for, saying that the doctors were trying to find a cure and telling the public to stay inside and not to panic. I breathed a laugh as the headline went on, figuring that it would just be a small scare like that U.S. Ebola ‘outbreak’ in 2014; just a scary flu that would go away in a month or two.

It was well past midnight when my siblings and I went to bed, the undead flesh-eaters fresh in our minds, but sleep eluded me. I wondered why Uncle Tommy told us all to come straight home, and why he hadn’t come home yet, and just how bad this virus really was.

I hoped that it was just a part of flu season, but something kept tugging at the back of my mind telling me otherwise. It was three fifty two in the morning when I last looked at my watch before I finally passed out.

When I awoke again, my watch read eight past six. I sat up slowly in bed, rubbing my eyes as I tried to figure out what it was that woke me up from my less than satisfactory slumber, and noticed movement near the door to my room. Suddenly wide awake, I stared into the darkness until my eyes adjusted from the sleep, and I recognized Octavia creeping into my room with Felix cowering beside her.

“What are you doing?” I mumbled through sleep.

“We heard something in the kitchen.” Octavia whispered back. If not for my sisters terrified tone, I would have taken it as one of her usual jokes and would have told her to go back to sleep. However, because Octavia sounded like she was on the edge of panicking and she had our brother with us, they all jumped when something hard collided with the tile floor of the kitchen. I quickly got up and grabbed the hunting knife from under my bed and crept into the hall, my younger siblings cowering behind me.

My heart was thudding in my throat as I heard someone rummaging through a drawer in the kitchen and a low muttering sound. I tried to flip a couple lights on, but it seemed that the power was out. That didn’t make the situation feel any better.

The sound of me flipping the lights did not seem to deter the intruder either as they continued to dig through drawers and talk quietly. I turned the corner, Octavia and Felix clutching the back of my sleep shirt like a life-line, and saw through the moonlight that flooded in through the sliding back door that our uncle had returned from work and was the one who was frantically digging through drawer’s looking for something and muttering on the phone.

His uniform was torn in places and there were dark patches of something staining it in others. His hair, usually kept nice and neat, was all over the place. He looked like he came from a war.

“No, no I’m looking for it… No I didn’t lose it, if you would have told me that it would be starting soon, I’d have had it on hand… Why would I carry it on me all the time?” Their uncle was saying. Cassandra couldn’t hear the voice on the other end of the phone very well, but it sounded like a woman.

“Uncle Tommy…?” I questioned. He didn’t seem to hear me.

“As soon as I find it, we’ll take a plane to you… What? Of course not a public plane!” I tapped his back and he dropped the phone, spun around, grabbed my wrist, and was all ready to elbow me in the face all in one fluid motion when he realized that it was just me. He quickly let go.

“Jesus Cassy, you scared the shit outta me. Just a second.” He said and bent over and picked up the phone he dropped. Before he grabbed it, I caught a glimpse of who he was calling and saw that it was Emily Cage, our mother.

“Yeah I’m still here, the kids startled me is all. No I didn’t hurt them, calm down Emily. Here, I found it. Yes, it’s in my hands right now.”

“You’re talking to Mom.” I stated.

“Can we talk to her?” Felix asked, perking up.

“Where is she?” Octavia questioned.

“Whoa, calm down kids. There isn’t a lot of time to explain, so talk fast.” Tommy said, put the phone on speaker, and handed it to me.

“Hello? Mom?” I spoke.

“Cassy dear, are O and Felix with you?” our mother replied. Her voice was soothing to hear after several months of not being able to call her for some reason or another.

“Yeah, we’re all here. What’s going on? Should we be worried?” I asked.

“When are you coming to visit us?” Octavia pipped in.

“Can we come visit you?” Felix added.

“Guys, hold on! Mom, what’s happening?” I fought my siblings for the phone, knowing that something big was going on and I wanted answers and our mother seemed to have them.

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you much over an unsecured channel, it’s too dangerous. Just listen to Thomas and stay together, can you do that for me?” Emily asked.

“Mom –”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. They’re about to fire off the EMP, so I can’t talk long, honey. I want you to know that I love you all, okay?” I could tell that mom was holding back tears and I was so confused and scared. I had no idea what was going on, or why mom was talking like she’d never see us again, and I was starting to worry about this EMP she mentioned.

“I’m so proud of all of you. Cassy, take care of your brother and sister, okay? O, Felix, don’t give each other a hard time, alright? I love you all so much. I–”

Static.

Seconds afterwards, I saw the streetlights outside shut down and the phone in my hands did as well. Felix and Octavia looked over to our uncle, fright clear on their faces. I was trying to turn the phone back on, but to no avail.

 “What’s going on, Uncle Tommy?” Felix asked, his voice barely above a whisper and it cracked somewhere in the middle.

“Pack some clothes and food, kids, we have to leave.” Uncle Tommy ordered. His voice was not his usual family voice, or even his police voice. It was much more stern and serious, almost as though he was a completely different person talking.

“Not until you tell us what’s going on.” I demanded as fear rose in my throat.

“Cass, you heard Mom, she told us to listen to Uncle Tommy.” Octavia said, her voice shook as she spoke.

“She didn’t tell us anything that’s going on. Does this have to do with the sick people? Are we sick too?” I demanded.

“Cassy, I–” Uncle Tommy tried, but a loud crash from the sliding back door behind us interrupted him, and Octavia screamed.

The rest of the scene seemed to slow down. Having jumped from the initial crash, I spun around to the broken shards of our remaining sliding glass door and saw a man in the middle of the floor, picking himself up from the pile of the glass he broke. His movements were unnatural, slow, deliberate, beastial.

Octavia was frozen in fear in front of Felix, and I watched as everything unfolded. The man who broke into the house looked remarkably like Mister Winston, our kind, elderly neighbor who often times brought candy from the shop he ran to us. He looked beaten and bloody, like he needed help, but the blood that I saw didn’t look like it belonged to him.

His baby blue button up was halfway undone and his chest was showcasing a nasty bloody bite that didn’t belong to any wild animal I recognized; it looked human. His hands and arms were covered in blood, and I could see small chunks of skin under his nails. His face and arms were covered in fresh cuts from when he burst into our backdoor and he was missing a shoe. When he opened his mouth, no words came out. Instead, it was the sound of an angry predator ready to pounce, and I saw strips of flesh hanging from his teeth, and blood dripped down his chin and jaw. His eyes looked even stranger than the rest of him; even in the dim moonlight, I could make out the blood vessels around his eyes; they were blackened as though oil ran in his veins instead of blood. I could see the blackened blood stained the surface of his cheeks as though he had cried the liquid before breaking into the house.

He started to charge at us, his feet slipping on the broken glass as he swung his arms wildly to keep his balance. Acting as fast as I could, I stepped in front of my siblings to shield them. I was met with a heavy weight when Mister Winston collided with me, and charged me to the ground. I tried my best to keep him from biting or scratching me, but he was heavy and moved with purpose.

His teeth snapped inches away from my face several times like a rabid dog, and I screamed in fear. I thought it was over until a loud and horrifically familiar _bang_ rang in my ears, and Mister Winston went limp, falling on top of me with all his weight.

I felt something warm and sticky splash on my face, and saw a lot of red, smelt a lot of iron, and heard some dogs barking across the street. I scrambled out from under Mister Winston and saw a smoking gun in Tommy’s hands, his face stern. The barking was quickly drowned out with similar sounds of angry predators and terrified screams.

“Hurry up and pack your bags, kids. More will be here soon.”


	2. Chapter One: Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been some time since the infection broke out. Cassandra gets an interesting surprise. Octavia is a Bi mess. Felix just wants to eat the deer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cass is a sassy piece of work

Light from the mid-morning sun dapples in through the fire-colored leaves from the branches above me. Everything is quiet in the surrounding woods, save for the gentle breeze that blows in, startling the leaves and branches and evergreens. I made sure that my scent is down-wind from my target as I watch it graze just ahead of me, ignorant to my presence.

The deer is a young female, perhaps a few seasons old, but is plenty large enough to feed my siblings and me for a few nights. Far better than the trio of squirrels in my pack, anyway. Its pelt is thick and freshly groomed, ready for the coming winter. One of its legs has a deep-set scar along the hind-quarters; an old injury caused by another hunter it seems, telling me that there may or may not be other people in the area.

That thought worries me, but what I've seen so far tells me that there's no one else is in these woods, save for the accident that happened several weeks ago.

It's tail flicks and shudders in anxiety. It knows there's something in these woods with her, but it doesn't matter since it can't see or smell me. The bushes giving me cover are tall and thick, sufficiently hiding me and my movements from the hart, but I still have to be careful. One wrong move and we'll have to go another day without substantial food, and I don't know how much longer Octavia and Felix will last without something that will keep them for longer than an hour or two.

I myself am quite hungry, my stomach feeling as though it could eat itself out of me, and the annoying tingling in the back of my throat is distracting, but I can't lose this deer. We've gone too long eating nuts, berries, and squirrels and whatever food hasn't gone bad that we've scavenged from nearby homes. Ever-so-carefully, I draw my bow, inch by inch, and the creature raises its head. Its ears swivel around, attempting to spot me by sound, and I stop moving altogether.

It's aware that danger is near, but it seems to be staring out into the trees to the right of me. Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, I turn my head to listen in that direction, my fingers gradually moving to my quiver. By the time they brush the fletching of my arrows, I've already let out several silent breaths. Whatever the doe is listening to is good at hiding too, and I can't help but think that maybe something - or someone - is also tracking this doe.

Whatever it is, I refuse to let them have it. Gradually, I slip an arrow out of my quiver and nock it, the soft sound getting the doe's attention. It now knows it's being hunted, and I have to act quick before it gets away again. I pull the string back, my fingers fringe on the taunt bowstring, my finger-pads beg to release the pressure and the feathery fletching tickle my cheek.

Before I can let the arrow loose, my throat is met with sharp cold metal. “Drop the bow,” A young females voice orders. It’s an English accent whose tone chills my blood.

In this day and age, a knife to the throat meant business, and usually it’s usually the ‘trade of supplies for your life’ kind of business.

My current chances of going toe to toe with this woman gets shot down when a young man leaps from the tree the doe is grazing under, sinking a knife deep in its neck as he falls onto it. The doe didn’t even have time to register what happened; it was dead before it hit the floor, and I had a nasty feeling that I was about to share a similar fate.

I suddenly get a stupid idea.

“Drop it, or I drop you.” The voice growls.

Doin’ it.

I let the arrow fly and allow my arm to follow through, elbowing the woman behind me in the face hard enough to knock her on her ass. I feel the sharpness of the knife as it nicks my neck, but I don’t care. Taking my chance, I stand, sling my bow back over my back, and bolt without a second glance back at the man I may or may not have shot.

I hear footsteps behind me and I know that I’m fucked, but I still have the leather bag with the squirrel’s, and throw it back at the face of my pursuer in a vain attempt to slow them down. In throwing the, I slow down too much and they lurch forward, grabbing both of my legs and I fall face first into the leaves. Whoever it is makes a mad grab to hold my legs still, but I’m not about to get caught so easily. I kick at their hands with my boots and snag a finger, ripping myself free from their grip, earning a _very_ pissed off shout of “ _FUCK!_ ” from the English woman.

I quickly grab the knife from my belt and make a stab for the woman but she rolls away and back onto her feet. As she lunges at me for another attack, I roll back and kick up, planting my feet on her chest and abdomen, and use her momentum to kick her behind me into a tree.

I’m glad all those years of self-defense from Uncle Tommy paid off.

I quickly roll backwards onto my feet, and this time the man is charging at me in a blur, almost too fast for me to notice. I lung towards him with my knife and make a stab at his chest, but he grabs my wrist, gives it a painful twist, and knocks the knife right out of my hands as it lands in the leaves somewhere. I twist with his hand, throw his arm over my shoulder, and flip him into the bushes, punching him in the sternum in an attempt to stun him, and I turned back around.

Fuck.

The English woman charges into me like a freight train and I fall backward, attempting to twist to catch myself on anything, and my face connects with a tree. I let out a yelp of pain as my vision goes black and my body limp.

I hardly register one of them tying my hands behind my back and throwing me against a tree. My head throbs, feeling as though I fractured my skull, and I can feel blood gushing from above my right eye and soon enough I can taste the iron-coppery flavor in my mouth. I feel dizzy and my entire body feels like it connected with the tree. I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.

I cough. “If you want the damn deer, you can have it…” I mutter, my eyes still shut from the pain and blood. I spit out some of the blood that collected in my mouth and discover rather painfully that I have a busted lip as well. I don’t even have to look at my two attackers to know that they’re royally pissed.

“She’s a feisty smartass, that’s for sure.” The young man wheezes. I can hear him moan and get up, crawling out of the bushes, and I can’t help the smug grin that creeps to my lips.

“Check her arms, make sure if she has it or not.” I hear him walk over to me and one of them roughly picks up my bound hands and checks my arms for something. They push up the sleeves of my maroon hoodie and check my biceps as well, but I guess they don’t find what they’re looking for because the woman sighs angrily before she speaks.

“She’s clean.” She drops my arms.

“If you’re looking for a bite, I’d have been infected by now.” I say and open my one eye that isn’t covered in blood to get a look at my attackers.

The woman glaring at me is probably around my age, looking remarkably like an actress with fluffy short blonde hair – not quite an afro but more of a puffy bob – that looked like it was in the middle of recovering from a lost war with a weed-whacker. I want to say that it looks stupid, and on anyone else it _would_ look ridiculous, but I’m angry at myself to think that it actually looks good on her.

Aside from looking like a character from ‘The Games of Starvation’, the woman assailant look to be as if she was calculating some sort dastardly  plan in her head, and I know I should worry.

It’s likely that she thinks I’m a part of one of the organizations trying to ‘restore order’ or one of the bandit groups – likely either the Widowmakers or Phoenix Rising – and didn’t account for me not being in one. The most defining feature I can’t help but notice are her stormy gray eyes that seem to have a squall capable of leveling cities brewing just behind them, threatening to burst with lightning and hurricane-force winds, and they were directed at me.

The man behind her looks very much the same, but a lot nicer looking than his female counterpart; same dusty wavy blonde hair, same face structure. The stark differences between the two were calm blue eyes, face stubble, and the fact that he doesn’t look like he lost an argument with a weed-whacker. He looks nice enough, but the two long scars from the right side of his jaw that trace up his cheek tell me that he is definitely a dangerous person.

That, or he’s a really lucky, and stupid, bastard.

“Looking for organization markings. If you had the Widowmaker’s marking, we’d have to kill you now.” The woman replies simply.

“As opposed to later?” I venture. She simply looks over to the man who I assume is her brother. I can see a painful looking bruise surrounding an even more painful looking cut under her left eye from where I elbowed her, and I can’t help but to feel a sense of satisfaction wash over me from the sight of it.

“We should have gotten back-up when we saw them this morning.” She says.

“Well, if one of them isn’t with the Widower’s, then the others won’t be either.” He replies. I play stupid

“Others? What others?” The woman glances back at me.

“Your group asleep by the river.” She replies. Rage boils under my skin, but I do my best to keep calm.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s just me out here.” I reply as the man picks up the pouch of rabbits.

“That’s an awful lot of meat for one person, on top of that deer, too.” He comments with a smug smile.

“I hunt a lot to keep myself going, and use the furs for warmth.” I lie.

“So then I suppose we should just go to the river then and get rid of them.” The woman grunts, standing up, and I can’t hold myself back anymore.

“I swear to God, if you hurt them, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” The woman asks rather smugly and clearly not in the mood for any more of my shenanigans. Without thinking – Octavia must have rubbed off on me – I spit the blood that collected in my mouth at her. I miss her face unfortunately, but it lands on her shirt and pisses her off.

“Why you little!” The woman moves to slam her boot down on my face but I slide to the side and off of the tree, making the woman kick the tree instead. I roll onto my feet and start to sprint off into the trees, the sound of leaves being kicked up tells me that the woman starts after me, but the man calls out “Just let her go, Dee!”

I hear the woman break pursuit, but I don’t bother to look back in case if she was right behind me again. As our make-shift camp comes into view, I wiggle out of the bindings and stuff them in my pocket in case if I need them for later. Octavia and Felix perk up when they hear me run through the river over to the camp, both of them with worried faces.

“I guess breakfast fought back?” Octavia teases as I hurry to the tent to start untying the knots holding up the tarp

“In a manner of speaking. Pack up, we need to leave. Now” I demand.

“But what about breakfast?” Felix questions.

“We’ll find something along the way. Eat some berries or nuts or something.”

“What’s going on? Are infected on the way?” Octavia asks, finally starting to take this seriously.

“No, but there are people out here and I really don’t want to stick around when they come here.” I reply. When the tarp comes down, my heart sinks.

“Boo.” The young man says with a grin. I jump back and in one swift movement, pull my bow out, nock an arrow, and take aim. Octavia and Felix raise their axe and crowbar respectively. I notice that he has the doe slung over his shoulder and my bag in his hands.

“Why are you following me?!” I demand.

“Is this the guy who did that to you, Cassy?” Octavia asks.

“No, it-”

“That was me.” I spin around and I’m face to face with the girl with the should-be stupid hair and she looks none too pleased, twirling my discarded hunting knife in her hands. The action pisses me off more than I’d like to admit.

“Son of a bitch…” I growl.

“Who are these guys?” Felix whispers.

“The ones who mugged me and stole breakfast.” I growl.

“Oh, you mean this bag?” The man asks, holding up the leather sack I made to hold small game animals. I glare at him. “You can have it back, we’re not going to steal your food.”

“Somehow, I feel like you’re lying.” I retort.

“Seriously, we just ate. Besides, we have more than enough back at our camp.” The man replies nonchalantly. The woman nods in agreement.

“Why did you tell us that?” I demand.

“That’s the reason we, er, ‘scuffled’ in the woods.” The man replies sheepishly, shifting the deer on his back and tossing the bag of squirrels at my feet.

“What he means to say is that we were patrolling when we found your camp. We saw you leave, followed you to see if you had malicious intents, and we decided to confront you when you got too close to our border.” The woman replies.

“So ‘confront’ means to put a knife to a stranger’s throat?”

“Well, you did shoot at me, elbow Dee in the face, run, tried to stab her, tries to stab me, and ran again. That doesn’t generally spell ‘peaceful woodland huntress looking to feed a family’ to us.” The man replies.

“Maybe I have bad memory, but I’m pretty sure the knife to the throat came first.” I growl.

“So what you’re saying is that this is a misunderstanding and we can leave, right?” Octavia speaks up and I will her to shut her mouth. I know she’s trying to diffuse the situation, but unless if we do something about these two, we won’t be able to leave at all.

“Not exactly. It was a misunderstanding, yes, but we can’t let you leave. We still gotta make sure you aren’t a threat to our people.” The man says.

Called it.

“Great. And how do you suppose that happens?” I ask.

“We take you to talk to Leon and he’ll decide if you’re a threat or not.” The woman replies simply.

“Do I want to know what happens if he thinks we’re a threat…?” Felix ventures.

“I suppose he’ll kill you, or blindfold you and take you someplace far away from here and drop you off.” The man replies. “The possibilities are endless.”

I glance at Octavia and Felix and can see the worry on their faces. I turn back to the woman.

“So we’re your prisoners, right?” I ask.

“In a manner of speaking.” She muses. I grin and pull my arrow back a bit more, aiming it at her.

“Really? Because you’re outnumbered three to two.” I say matter-of-factly. My blood goes cold as woman reaches behind her and draws a thirty-three revolver, aiming at my sister.

“And you’re out gunned.” She almost purrs it. I glance back at the man who simply shrugs, drops the doe, and pulls out a matching pistol.

I should have known they were packing more heat than they let on.

 “Could you kindly lower your bow before things get nasty again? I’m afraid that round two will have to be ‘shoot to kill’.” The man asks.

I don’t have a choice; if I want to protect my family, I have to do at these two say. I slowly lower the bow and let the arrow fall to the ground, still eyeing the dynamic duo with disdain. I’m glad that Felix and Octavia have the sense to do the same, and I can see that Octavia is fighting the urge to take a swing.

“Good, now drop the weapons on the ground and put your hands on your heads.” The man says. We do as he asks and the two of them set to work on binding our hands behind our backs, the woman makes doubly sure to bind my hands tighter than they were the first time, nearly cutting my circulation.

The two of them pick up our bags and weapons and start to escort us through the river and into the woods. They have us lined up with me in the back and the English woman poking me with the barrel of her pistol when I would lag behind in an attempt to plot an escape route through the woods. She won’t let me get further than five feet away from Felix though and I have a feeling that she really will shoot me if I try anything. The trek is tense and quiet and I’m beginning to wonder if they’re just taking us someplace to shoot us. At that cheery thought, I start to hear other voices up ahead.

At first it was hushed and only sounded like five or so people, but then I start to see makeshift walls made of branches, bricks, dried mud, and clay tower above me topped with razor wire and I can hear more voices beyond the wall. We walk along the outer wall until we come to a gated entrance with a sign above a large metal door that reads ‘Camp Cottonwood’. Two guards wearing body armor made of road signs, license plates, a police grade bullet proof vest, and what looks to be soccer or hockey pads for their arms and holding rifles guard the entrance. Upon seeing us, the guards give a curt nod to the two strangers and they open the large metal gate and let us in. Inside looks like a campground with tents, log-cabins, a greenhouse, and of course the same river we crossed to get here snaked around the back. The largest of the cabins is just ahead of us and has two similarly dressed guards posted outside.

Several people are here at the camp actually and a lot of them are woman, children, and elderly. Most of the children don’t look older than thirteen with a few exceptions of a fifteen year old here and there and the people who saw us knew that we were prisoners. Whispers quickly start about us and I don’t even need to hear them to know that they’re bad rumors, probably that we’re bandit scouts that were scoping the camp out for a larger group to finish off and loot. A lot of the whispers are about the injuries me and the English woman sport, particularly because my forehead is still bleeding. I have to keep my right eye closed as we walk on, which throws off my balance and my head is still throbbing.

The dynamic duo leads us to the large log cabin situated further along the path in the center of the camp and once more the guards outside gave them both a curt nod before opening the door and letting us in. The inside looks homey; wooden floors, cushy looking chairs and couches in the large main room, paintings of  serene woodlands, a fireplace flanked by two large bookshelves. There aren’t very many people in here. The few who are inside look to be guards wearing lighter armor than the guards outside, and they’re simply chatting in the main room, seated on the couch.

“I bet you those bastards are running scared since Jocelyn dropped those bombs on their base!” A young man says.

“They have bombs of their own, why would they be scared of ours?” A young woman replies. She sounds worried.

“Maybe they’re planning a larger attack on us to get rid of us for good?” A teenaged boy adds, sounding more scared than worried. He doesn’t look like he was old enough to be a guard or scout, but then again, at his age Felix was whacking infected like it was extreme baseball. The two strangers steer us towards a closed door and give it three knocks. There is a couple seconds of silence before a deep accented voice answers.

“Come in.” It orders. The man opens the door into a study with a large oak desk sitting in front of an equally large window. On either wall are wide bookshelves and situated behind the desk is a tall Hispanic man whose hair is tied back. He looks perhaps to be in his forties but the bags under his eyes and the crease in his brow that furrows further when we walk in makes him look even older. He wears a military ACU jacket whose sleeves have been ripped off at one point and a no sleeve black shirt, showcasing muscular arms and a particular half-sleeve on his left arm that looks like an eagle flying with an American flag. He has a scar on his mouth that looks old and I’m starting to wonder if everyone here had scars, though I won’t be surprised; my siblings and I have plenty ourselves. His eyes train onto me and the woman, likely because we beat the piss out of each other – I have no regrets – and he turns to a man who’s dressed like the ones in the sitting room.

“You can deliver the rest of your report later.” The Hispanic man dismisses. The scout gives a curt nod, turns heal, and marches out of the room. This guy must be the Leon that the two were talking about.

“Are they clean?” He asks. His accent is a thick Spanish accent but not to the point where I can’t understand him.

“Yes sir.” The woman says.

“Are these the only ones you found?” The Hispanic man asks.

“Yes sir. The older one was hunting while the other two were asleep at a makeshift camp.” The man replies, gesturing to the deer still on his shoulders and the bag in his hands.

“I see. Go deliver the deer and whatever is in the bag to Butch. We’ll have the deer tomorrow and these three can have whatever it is they caught for dinner tonight.” The Hispanic man says. The English man nods and walks out of the office with our breakfast. I’m very disappointed to see it go.

“I see at least one of them put up a fight.” The man says. I can’t tell if he’s joking or disappointed since he keeps his face neutral for the most part. The woman shifts and waits a little too long to answer him, so he continues to speak. “Did they attack first?” He asks. The tone of his voice sounds like he already knows the answer and he’s only asking to see if she’ll lie.

“Not technically, sir.” The woman is starting to feel nervous and I can’t help but feeling smug about it. I have a feeling that they weren’t supposed to attack us since we outnumbered them and I have a feeling that she disobeyed that order. The man sighs and closes his eyes for a moment before opening them and looking at us once more.

“They either did, or they didn’t Danielle. What happened?” He asks. It’s more of a demand, but he’s awfully calm about it.

“Sir; Josh and I were patrolling the river as you ordered and we came across a small camp with these three there. We didn’t know if they were scouts for the Widowmakers, so we waited until we could get one by themself.” She starts, sounding normal once again. “When this one left the camp, Josh and I tailed her until she was far enough out of camp to engage and we did.” She nudges me forward as she spoke and I did my best to keep quiet, not wanting to say anything that would provoke either the woman or her huge leader. “She…” She starts and shifts once more but holds his gaze. “…struggled.” The man whom I will assume is Leon looks between me and the woman, likely imagining the fight between us.

“And how did you ‘engage’, exactly?” He asks. He sounds like he already knew the answer as well as he glances at the knife nick in my neck. I decide to speak up this time since ‘Danielle’ is taking too long, likely trying to find a way to make me out to be the bad guy and save her own hide.

“She held a knife to my throat.” I say and his gaze quickly trains onto me. “Sir.” I add as an afterthought. He gives me a once over and looks once more to Danielle.

“Danielle?”

She sighs. “That would be the safe assumption, yes.”

The Hispanic man sighs again and stands. He’s much taller than I thought he was and I fight the urge to shrink away.

“I’m sure Danielle here has already mentioned, but I’m the head of this camp and in charge of keeping it safe, which includes questioning…” He looks as though he’s looking for a word that won’t offend us; not like we can do anything if he offends us anyway. “…travelers, such as yourselves.” He settles for.

“’Interrogation prisoners’ in other words.” I clarify.

“I hope you understand our precaution. Trust these days is running a little thin.” He replies. I know he has a point but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. To be honest, I would likely have done the same thing in their shoes if this is what I was protecting and I would do it with no hesitation if the Widowmakers were involved.

“Yes, we…” I sigh. “We understand.” I dip my head and start to feel a little dizzy, likely from my head injury.

“Take them to the sheds and call Sturges to patch you two up. We’ll talk more when he’s done. Let Josh know when you radio him that you and he will guard them until I get there.” Leon orders.

“I can patch myself up.” Danielle says and she sounds a little insulted.

“Would you be willing to patch her up, too?” Leon questions, gesturing to me. Danielle takes a while to answer.

“Yeah.” She sighs. “Sterges needs to keep an eye on Williams and Harris so they don’t go off and do something stupid again. I’ll have his helper bring up the kit.”

Leon gives a curt nod and dismisses us, having Danielle led us out of the large cabin and toward a small wooden utility shed with barn-style doors. She unlocks the doors and nudges my siblings in after cutting their bindings one by one. She cuts my bindings and gestures with her head inside the barn and she pulls a walkie-talkie out of a slot next to the shed door as I step in.

“Hey Sturges, I need you to send Adams over here at the utility shed. I need a moderate patch up for two.” Danielle orders.

“Did you and that cousin of yours get into another fight?” A very southern sounding man answers.

“No, it wasn’t Josh this time. We have some…” She glances at me and my siblings. “…guests.”

“Oh I see, they must be what all the hub-bub is all about, ain’t they?”

“Yeah, just bring the kit, I’ll be waiting outside.” Danielle hangs the walkie back onto the slot she grabbed it from and closes the shed on us. It isn’t really all that dark so it isn’t hard to find the light cord that turned on the bulb that’s attached to the middle of the ceiling. There isn’t a lot in this shed; a couple lawn chairs and stools, a few cots, a dirty bucket that I really hope isn’t used for what I think it is, and a larger bucket of dirty looking water that has trapped flies and bugs swimming around. I nudge the two buckets and, to no surprise, they’re screwed down so I can’t pick them up. The dirty bucket without the water has a large hole punched in the bottom that aligned with a hold in the ground. Looks like it’s not just _a_ bucket, but _the_ bucket. I wrinkle my nose. I guess it was better than having someone come in and dump it every so often when they had prisoners. After a moment of looking around the shed, I hear the lock fall and one of the doors swings open with Danielle standing there. She is either really confident that I won’t jump her the second she walks through the door, or she was confident in her ability to hold us off. Then again, there’s a walkie handing on the outside of the door she could easily grab if we try anything.

“Grab a stool and take a seat.” Danielle nods to me. I don’t like taking orders from her, but once again, there isn’t really anything I can do to protest. Plus it’d be nice to not have blood pouring into my eye, so I did as I was told. At least my busted lip isn’t bleeding as bad. I grab a stool and sit down and she goes right to work. She grabs a rag and a water bottle out of a bag she brought and wets the rag and starts to wipe the blood from my face. I notice that the cut under her eye is still bleeding, too.

“Why are you patching me up first?” The question comes out before I can stop it and I cringe as Danielle pats the cut on my head a little rougher than before.

“Because you might have a concussion and you can’t answer questions very well if you can’t remember anything.” She replies. Fair enough. She hands me another rag from the bag after she wipes most of the blood off of my face.

“Put this on the wound and put pressure on it. I’m going to need to disinfect it.” She orders. I do as I’m told as she digs around in the bag a bit and pulls out a small flashlight. “Keep your eyes open if you can.” She says and shines the light in my eyes. I keep them open as long as I can as she checks my pupils. She puts her flashlight away and dig in her bag once more. “Doesn’t look like you have any brain injuries.” I can tell by her tone that she wants to add some snarky comment, but luckily for me, she refrains herself.

“Are you from England?” Octavia finally speaks up. Danielle hardly looks her way when she replies.

“Born and raised.” Danielle replies.

“What are you doing here, then?” Felix asks. She pauses for a split second before gesturing for me to remove the rag and she sets to work on disinfecting the cut. I hiss from the pain and will myself not to flinch away.

“Visiting family.” She says curtly. She’s quiet again. With her being this close, I could easily overpower her and we could escape relatively unharmed and judging from my siblings looks, they’re on the same page. With her hand on my forehead and her concentrating on cleaning the wound, I could punch her in her windpipe and that would get us plenty of time to smash the walkie-talkie hanging on the door and make a run for it. I’m pretty sure that I saw an armored renovated RV parked near the big cabin as Danielle led us here, I could hotwire it if there aren’t keys inside and we could ram the gate and be on our way. I’d feel a little bad for leaving them defenseless without a front gate, but they look resourceful enough to quickly recover and be just fine.

“You wouldn’t make it very far.” Danielle comments and I know she knows what I was thinking, step by step.

“What are you talking about?” I lie. She rolls her eyes as she takes out sticky stitches and starts to apply the first one to the cut.

“I know you’re planning an escape. It’s clear on your faces.” She says. I glance down and see that she had the gun tucked in her belt and I know she’s right. The second she’s able, she would shoot me or my siblings and make sure that we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere and that would ruin the plan entirely. We certainly are in a pickle now. She sticks the second sticky stitch next to the one she placed before, covering both with some gauze and medical tape and stands up.

“Your lip is just going to have to heal on its own.” Danielle says as she puts away the medical equipment and pulls out a mini bottle of water and a pill bottle, taking out a blue capsule I recognize as Aleve. “Go ahead and take this now, I’ll bring another one with dinner.” She says and hands me the items and start towards the door. She pauses a moment to look back at us. “If you aren’t with the Widowmaker’s, why are you here?” She asks. I wasn’t expecting her to really care enough to ask since I’m sure Leon will be the one to ask those types of questions and she would likely hear about it through him. I want to know what her deal is. First she threatens me in the woods and beats the crap out of me, then she suggests patching me up, albeit she was more volunteered to do so, but she agreed to it without argument.

“Why do you care?” I return. She looks me over once more and I honestly have no idea what it is that she’s looking for. She stares at me for a few uncomfortable seconds before she answers.

“I don’t.” With that, she walks out, closes the door, and locks it behind her. The three of us let out a breath we weren’t aware that we were holding and I feel a weight drop on my shoulders. I have no idea how we’re going to get out of here in one piece and even less of an idea on how we’re going to get far enough from here before they can catch up to us. I peek out of the small barred window at the side of the shed to see if there’s anything around that I could grab to help us escape, but these guys are smart; there’s nothing around the shed within any reasonable distance that could help us.

“At least she’s hot.” Octavia says out of nowhere. I turn around to look at my sister.

“What the fuck, Octavia?” I demand.

“What? You were thinking it too!” She defends and then got her disgustingly dreamy face going on. “Kinda wish I had some injury. She can kick my ass and patch me up _any_ day.” I can tell that Felix is trying to ignore her by examining the pattern of the blanket on the cot he’s sitting on.

“I can give you an injury if you want one so bad.” I retort.

“Geeze Cassy, lighten up, I was kidding!” Octavia huffs. “For the most part.”

“Oh yeah, let me lighten up real quick! Look here, this is a wonderful change of scenery! The bars on the windows are _nice_ and _shiny_ addition to our new home and look! We get a SHIT BUCKET!” I throw my arms in the direction of the dirty bucket with a hole in the bottom to solidify my point.

“I said ‘lighten up’, not act like a bitch…” Octavia grumbles and glares away from me. I sigh and walk over to sit down next to my sister.

“I know, you’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” I say and rub my sister’s back to let her know I meant it. “I got us into this mess, and it’s my job to get us out.”

“No, it’s not your fault. If I hadn’t misplaced that map, we would have been in Atlanta by now.” Octavia sighs.

“It’s my fault for putting you in charge of it.” I tease. Octavia rolls her eyes, but I can tell she’s smiling when she elbows me in the side and we all give short quiet laughs. We’ve been captured a few times during our travels after Uncle Tommy disappeared, but half the time the guards were either too stupid to search us for anything we could use to escape, or they were so gullible that we could trick them into letting us out. This time I don’t think any of that is an option. I might be able to take Danielle in a one-on-one fight, but I’m not entirely sure about being able to take that Josh guy _and_ Miss Sunshine, let alone the rest of this camp. I sigh, shaking my head. We’re going to just have to wait and see what’s going to happen.

We sit in silence for maybe twenty more minutes when we hear the padlock on the doors begin to jiggle and all of us look up to see Leon walk in, Danielle standing to the side with her arms crossed and Josh next to her. It’s too late to attempt an escape now.

“How’s your head?” Leon leads off with. I just stare at him as he enters and closes the door behind him. “I’m not your enemy here, Cassandra.” My blood felt cold. I know he isn’t the one who was standing outside the door that entire time and I didn’t hear any voices approach the shed, so Danielle couldn’t have told him and Josh wasn’t there to listen in.

“How do you know my name?” I demand.

“I’m a friend of Thomas’s. I recognized you and your sister from the Christmas cards Emily sent.” He says. “You two have grown a lot.” I can’t believe it. Or rather, I don’t want to believe it. This man knew our uncle and by extension, he knew us.

“If you knew who we were, why did you act like we were strangers before?!” I demand.

“I had to make sure that your father didn’t rub off on you.” Leon replies. I calm down if only a little. Or maybe I’m just morbidly curious. After all, I haven’t seen or heard from Feng since the divorce and we never got a reason as to why he and Mom split.

“What are you talking about? I haven’t seen him since I was five years old and I don’t even remember anything about him other than he was a racist bastard.” I reply.

“Which is why I had to make sure that he didn’t influence you in any way. If perhaps he was still in the picture, then you likely would have joined the Knight’s and we would have a problem on our hands.” I let that sink in but I’m still confused.

“What does he have to do with the Knight’s…?” I venture. “Have you talked to him recently?”

“No, I haven’t. But he and the Knight’s share similar virtues. If he was around you when you were young, it would make sense that you’d join them. Now,” He says and his expression changes. He looks more like he was ready to shoot us now and I take a step back. “Are you with the Knight’s?” He demands.

“Of course not! Those people have tried to kill us the entire time we’ve been traveling!” I exclaim. To be honest, they did give us shelter a long while ago shortly after Uncle Tommy vanished. They seemed nice enough at first, but then a few of the people ganged up on Octavia and I and, well…

I try not to think about it anymore.

Luckily we got away before things got too bad. We ended up killing three of their people during the scuffle and running away. Leon looks me over and can see that I’m being genuine. His expression returned to normal again, but I’m still wary.

“I’ll believe you for now.” He says. “For the time being, I have a few more questions for you.” I straighten up a bit. “How many Biters have you killed?” He asks. I glance to my siblings, not expecting that question. I guess that ‘Biter’ is what these people call the infected. It’s better than calling them ‘infected freaks’.

“I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to keep track of them.” I comment.

“An estimated guess?” He presses. I can’t see why it’s relevant, but I have no room to argue.

“I don’t know. Hundreds maybe?” I guess. He nods in approval. At least I think it’s in approval.

“How many people have you killed?” He asks. That one takes me by surprise.

“A lot less than the Biters, that’s for sure.” I say.

“Why?”

“Why there’s less or why I killed them?”

“Why did you kill them?” I pause. Most of the people I killed were going after my siblings. There was an occasional scenario where it was self-defense, and only one accident.

“They were going to kill me and my family.” I say simply.

“Fair enough.” He crosses his arms. “Where did you come from and where are you going?”

“We came from Sherman, Texas and we were heading for Atlanta.” I reply. He can hear the snark in my voice. I don’t really care.

“What’s in Atlanta?”

“Our Mom.”

“And?” I pause, unsure of what he’s looking for.

“Just our mom.” He looks me over. I’m not lying, not technically.

“I see. Well, dinner will be in a few hours. In the meantime, you three can share these. Hope you’re not vegan.” He pulls a bag of what looks to be jerky out of a side bag on his hip and I catch a glimpse of a pistol; I’m really glad we get the food and not the gun. “I will try to find space for you to sleep that’s more accommodating than this, but you’ll likely end up bunking with other people.” He says. As long as it’s not Miss Sunshine or Mister Ninja, I think we’ll be good. I nod to him and he nods back and walks over to the door and leaves. Briefly through the open door I can see Danielle glance inside towards me and I hear him give her more orders to guard us before the door shut.

I let out a sigh and hand the bag of jerky to my siblings as I sit down. I notice that the room seems to be a little brighter and I look out of the barred window. The sun is starting to set and I can barely see the purples, reds, and yellows that make up the sunset I can’t see through the trees and bars. I sit on the cot opposite of my siblings and lean back on the wall, tucking my knees to my chest. We’ve been delayed way too much now. I wonder if Mom is even still alive at this point. I wonder if she even still thinks we’re coming. She sounded worried on the phone before the power went out and I wonder if she’s in any danger. I rest my head on the wall and close my eyes, wondering for the millionth time how this mess started. It was too hush-hush to be an accident and it certainly hit pretty hard. I don’t want to believe that this was on purpose, but the more I think about it, the more sense it starts to make. An hour passes and the jerky is gone and we have two new guards, both of them sounding like young men. I start to wonder when dinner will be ready; that bag didn’t have a lot of jerky in it and I wanted to give my siblings a larger portion.

A bell starts to ring by the door and it sounds like it’s coming from the walkie. I can hear hurried footsteps rushing away from the door and catch sight of Josh rushing past with bullet-proof vest on and silenced guns in his hands.

“Hey, what’s going on?!” I demand, trying to look around through the window, but all I can see are a bunch of guards running around to key points around the camp.

“Widowmakers are making another push!” Josh calls over his shoulder as he joins his cousin at the main gate that’s just barely out of my line of sight. I hear a loud metallic thud once, twice, a third time.

Silence.

The doors are ripped off outward with a loud roar of a large motor somewhere beyond my line of sight. A streak of light flew overhead and I hear a bottle breaking.

A roar of fire fills my vision and my siblings scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO LIGHT 'EM UP UP UP LIGHT 'EM UP UP UP LIGHT 'EM UP UP UP WE'RE ON F I R E


	3. Chapter Two: Giant Slayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Widowmaker's pay Camp Cottonwood a visit. It's not the good kind of visit, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Cassandra takes charge and everyone is amazed

All I can see is fire. I leap back away from the bars as a rush of heat blasts me in the face and fall off the cot I was kneeling on. I check to see if my eyebrows are still intact and luckily I can feel them. I scramble back up when I hear shouting and silenced gunfire. I notice that the shed seems to be getting hotter and Octavia screams. Turning back, part of the ceiling is on fire and it’s slowly creeping towards the lightbulb.

“Cover your eyes!” I shout and dive towards my brother and sister just as the light bursts, my siblings scream, and burning shards of glass and sparks shower the place. I quickly look up and see that some of the sparks catch. I’m amazed at how quickly some of the fire spreads. Thinking fast, I rip the blanket off one of the cots, shove it into the bucket of water, and slap it onto some of the smaller fires that started inside the shed. “Get the blankets wet and hold them over you!” I demand to my siblings. They snap into action and do as I tell them while I continue to try putting out the fire. It’s no use though, the source of the fire is outside of the shed and will continue to burn the shed if I keep putting the fires out.

I jump to the barred window and mistakenly grab the bars in an attempt to try and yank them away from the burning wood, but I yank my hands back as the metal burns them. I swear under my breath and twist my hands in the wet blanket in an attempt to prevent them from bubbling up later.

“Help! Somebody help! We’re trapped in here!” I shout through the bars but the fire leaps upwards and I flinch back again, the heat blasting me once more. Octavia and Felix are banging on the walls on the opposite side of the shed where the fire is creeping towards and I continue shouting. We can’t die in here, not like this! I’m sweating now and have to take my hoodie off. I tie it around my shoulders to protect my arms from falling embers and try once more to slap the fire with the wet blanket.

Memories of the night Uncle Tommy disappeared flash in my head. The smoke burns my lungs and the fire has already engulfed half of the shed. I try to stay low to keep away from the smoke but the flames are quickly spreading towards me and my siblings. Octavia and Felix start to bang on the door and try to break it down and I join then, but these guys really built this thing to last and it hardly budges with each shove and kick. We hear something sharp, maybe an axe, whacking away at the lock on the outside of the shed and I pull my siblings back. The barn doors fling open and Danielle is standing there, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth. I drop the wet blanket and push Octavia and Felix to run out of the shed ahead of me and run out myself as a section of the roof collapses and I fall forward onto Danielle in a coughing fit. Octavia and Felix are alright for the most part, breathing in the fresh air and shaking from the near death experience. Danielle helps me stand on my own, her hands steadying my shoulders. I hear her ask something, but I can’t really hear her over the fire and fighting in camp. She realizes that I can’t hear her and repeats what she says.

“Are you alright?” she asks over the chaos around us. I shakily nod and look up at her and notice someone coming up behind her with an axe.

“Move!” I yank her to the side and we both fall as a Black Knight member swings the axe just where we were standing.

He raises his axe for another swing and I can see a flash of movement to the side as someone yells, “Off with his head!” The man collapses as his head rolls off his shoulders and standing behind him is a young man with an orange handkerchief over his mouth and a katana in his hands. “You’re welcome!” The young man says as he gives a two finger salute to us and rushes off, slicing another man as he goes. Danielle stands and quickly helps me up, my head feeling even worse now from crashing into a tree and now depriving it of air.

“What’s going on?! Why are they here?!” Octavia demands.

“They’ve been holding off on an attack and we figured they were planning something like this, but we just didn’t know when! Now we do!” Danielle quickly explains. “Come on, follow me!” She orders and gestures towards The Den which happens to be untouched so far. She led the way, shooting any Black Knight who got too close and I brought up the rear to make sure that Felix and Octavia wouldn’t get grabbed. We run up the steps and she opens the door. People inside are panicking, some are armoring up and some of the guards run out of the building to join the fight.

“Get inside and stay here! You’ll be safe!” Danielle orders.

“What? Hell no! These two can stay here, but I’m going to help you!” I retort.

“Like Hell we’re staying here! If you’re going to fight, we are too!” Octavia argues. I turn on her.

“Shut up and listen to me, alright?! There are _way_ too many of these guys here! I need you to stay here and watch after Felix, understand?” I order.

“But–”

“Do you understand?!” I demand. She reluctantly nods her head and I can tell she’s trying not to cry. I hear Danielle shoot a couple guys who try to come after us. I hug my sister and take out the locket from my pocket and hand it to her. “Hold on to this until I get back, alright?” She shakily nods, knowing what I mean.

“Hurry, if you want to help, I’m running out of bullets!” Danielle hollers at me. I hug Felix and push them inside and a guard shuts the door behind them.

“Ready!” I yell back. Danielle leads me over to a heavily armored shed near The Den and works on unlocking it. A Black Knight member runs at us with his bat raised and I punch him in the throat, grab his arm, and throw him over my shoulder into a burning bush. Danielle gets the shed open and inside are hundreds of weapons; axes, swords, a few guns, lots of ammo, crowbars, machetes and all other kinds goodies I can use to help fight back with. I can feel my hands start to tingle from when I burned them; the kickback of a gun is going to make it worse and whacking people with a blunt weapon will hurt just as much. Well, I can’t shoot a gun for shit and hitting things are going to make my hands raw. Then I see my bow and quiver of arrows along with my hunting knife and climbing pick. I dive for them as Danielle closes the shed door and loads up on ammo. She watches me put my gear back on with her eyebrow raised.

“That’s some Laura Croft shit right there.” She gestures to my climbing pick. To be fair, I stole the pick off of someone who threatened my family and intended to throw it away, but when I figured out all of the uses it had, I decided to keep it.

“It’s a woman’s multi-tool, what can I say.” I reply as I grab more arrows from a different quiver in the shed and place them in my own. I hurry to the door as Danielle waits there, her hand on the knob. I knock an arrow and get ready to fire.

“Ready?” She asks

“Go for it.”

She opens the door and I see a Black Knight member about to attack a young man and I let the arrow fly, grab a handful more arrows from the quiver on my back, nock another, and shoot another Black Knight near the front gate before the first arrow found its mark in the man’s back.

“Well damn…” I hear Danielle mutter under her breath. I smirk as she quickly raises her pistol. “Alright, we’re going to head for the nursing cabin and help with evacuations. Stay away from the main gate, I saw those guys hauling a big metal box towards the gate when it blew and I heard something even nastier inside it.” She shoots another Black Knight that got too close. “Stay close to me and don’t wander off too far.” She orders and starts headings towards a long cabin where I can see a couple people defending it from Black Knight members. I shoot two more guys as a third ran over to me and I stab him with my last arrow, nock it, spin, and shoot a Black Knight behind me in the throat.

“Damn, that’s some fancy shooting, Robin Hood!” I hear a woman call out to me on the porch of the cabin. I look up and I can see a young woman with a large pistol in her hands. She wore a black and white baseball cap that covered most of her face but in the flickering of the fire I can see that she’s smiling.

“No time for introductions, Jocelynn! We’re here to help with evacuations!” Danielle calls back.

“We’d be able to get rid of these fuckers faster if we just joined in the fight and leave these schmucks to their own devices!” A tense man replies. On the opposite side of the porch near Jocelynn is a young man with neatly combed bright blonde hair in a black leather jacket with a nasty scar across his face with a pistol in his hands as well.

“Say that again, you fucker, I dare you!” A familiar voice shouts from the bottom of the stairs leading to the porch. Standing there with his katana is the same young man with the orange handkerchief over his mouth and he looks significantly more pissed than when I heard him shout “off with his head!” earlier.

“I’m just saying that we’d save more time fighting the real threat instead of guarding a bunch of people who can’t fight back!” The blonde man counters.

“Just shut up, Matt! No one asked for your opinion! If you don’t like Leon’s orders, I dare you to disobey him and fight at the front gate!” Danielle seethed as she shot another Black Knight member.

“You guys always blindly follow orders from that buffoon?” I hear him mutter. If I wasn’t a stranger in camp, I’d speak up and tell him to cram it, but I don’t feel like getting yelled at in a life-or-death fight.

“Jocelynn, Sparrow, go inside and gather everyone up while Cassandra, Matt and I clear a path! I’ll give you a signal and you lead them to The Den, we’ll cover you from behind!” Danielle orders. I don’t know why, but I can feel myself smile when she says my name. Jocelynn and the man with the orange handkerchief rush inside. “Matt, watch the flank!” Danielle orders over her shoulder and I can hear Matt mutter something under his breath as he shoots another Black Knight member. I grab another handful of arrows and start rapid firing them at Black Knight members who start getting too close between Matt and Danielle’s gunfire.

“Alright, Joe, you’re good!” Danielle calls and hits the side of the house two times with her fist. The door opens and elderly people start hobbling out with children holding their hands and guiding them towards The Den with Jocelynn in the lead. “Matt, Sparrow, you’re in front with Jocelynn. Cassandra, back with me.” Danielle orders. Matt and Sparrow rush towards Jocelynn and the two of them slowly clear a way path for the kids and elders to walk through while Danielle and I make sure that no one comes up behind them. We get to The Den and Felix and Octavia open the doors to let everyone in.

“Are you alright?” Octavia asks as I get up to the door, Danielle staying at the base of the porch scanning the carnage for something.

“Yeah, everything’s good so far. She let me get my bow and stuff , so I think they trust me enough at this point.” I reply and hug my siblings. I hear a radio cackle to life behind me and turn to see Danielle has a walkie-talkie to her ear. I can vaguely hear Leon’s voice on the other end giving orders.

“Yes, sir.” She turns to me and my siblings. “Stay here and protect your siblings. I’m going to the front gate.” Danielle orders.

“What? But I can help you–”

“By staying here and making sure your family is safe.”

“You were fine letting me help earlier though! What’s the deal this time?!”

“Leon’s orders. He wants me to keep you safe and having you protect your family does that for me. I have to go back out and make sure that _my_ family stays safe.”

I can honestly say that I wasn’t expecting that answer. I was fully expecting her to snap at me and say that she didn’t to want me to get in her way or something along those lines, but now looking at her in this circumstance, I can see that she’s just like me; a survivor protecting what’s hers. There’s no hate exclusively towards me – and if there is she’s really good at hiding it – like I originally thought. She’s just a young woman whose likely lost her fair share of people she loved and wants to protect what she has remaining. Now I kind of feel like an ass for thinking poorly of her. Kind of. I nod reluctantly.

“Do what you have to.” I tell her. Not that she needs me to, but she nods anyway and heads off towards the main gate.

“I call dibs.” Octavia piped up and I elbowed her in the ribs.

“You don’t call dibs on a person, you twit. Get inside and we’ll calm these people down.” I tell them and start to push them inside when I hear a loud crash, several screams and the sound of a loud car alarm over the chaos makes me jump about five feet in the air and I spin around to see what’s going on. Apparently the Widowmakers drove a large armored vehicle into the middle of the camp and crashed it into the center flag post. I notice that the van didn’t have a driver and I can see a bunch of the Widowmakers retreating back through the front gate. I shoot two more who were running away from me and from where I am on the porch, I can see Danielle stand up, probably from dodging away from the runaway van. I can see Leon yelling some orders but I can’t make out what it is that he’s saying over the alarm of the vehicle. A few men run over to the back of the van while one goes to the driver’s side to disable the alarm. There’s a sudden burst from behind the van that knocks the two men back several feet and rocks the van violently, startling the man trying to disable the alarm. I’ve seen something like this thing before and my blood goes cold as it lets out a deep throaty roar of rage.

It’s huge. I’m surprised that it somehow managed to fit in the back of this armored vehicle. When it stands, it’s well over seven feet tall at the least as it towers over the cowering guards who likely have never seen one of these things before. It looks almost like a giant hairless gorilla with muscles the size of cinderblocks and its skin permanently stained and streaked with blood. What’s left of its hair after mutation hangs in long, thick, oily and matted lumps on its head and in its face. Danielle was frozen and for a second I feared that this giant infected was going to crush her into paste but she quickly rolls away with two other guys, but one was too slow and it caught his leg. He let out a cry of pain that was cut short when the big Biter lifted him by his leg and held him to its face. For a second, I thought it was going to eat him, but it yelled in his face, turned around, and slammed him into the ground behind him several times until all it was holding was a broken and squished leg.

I’ve only seen very few of these kinds of Biters in our travels and I rightly named them the Berserkers, for obvious reasons. I had very little information on Berserkers mostly because every time I saw one, I would steer my siblings far away to avoid confrontation, though I have sat and watched one from a distance once just to get some info on them. They have more aggression than the average Biter and are so far the biggest ones that I’ve seen. Most of the time, they seem to kill only for sport or pleasure, if Biters are even capable of feeling such things. I’ve never really sat and watch one eat someone before so I have no idea what their feeding habits are, but I’ve seen a couple attack other Biters who got too close to them. They have personal space issues, are significantly less intelligent than the others, are capable of throwing cars, uprooting street-signs to beat people with, and will not hesitate to beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker. If I don’t warn Danielle and the others about what it can do, the Berserker will likely kill us all in less than a few minutes, so I do yet another stupid thing.

I bolt forward with my bow drawn and an arrow nocked. The Berserker raises the leg in its huge meaty hand and its back is to me, so far its attention is focused on Danielle, who’s trying to get out of the way as it tries to hit her with the remains of the leg. I shoot it in its back and it roars in anger, quickly swinging the leg in my direction but I dive over it and roll to my feet near Danielle.

“I told you to stay with your family!” She exclaims as she loads another clip into her pistol.

“You don’t know how to fight these things and I do! Killing it protects my family!” I yell back as I nock another arrow and let it fly, hitting it in the bicep. I hear her groan in begrudged acceptance as she starts shooting the Berserker.

It throws the leg at us and we both move out of the way as it sails past us and thuds into the clay wall of the camp behind us. It gives out another loud roar and smashes a fist between us, making us fall away. My head throbs, but I force myself to stand once more, nock and arrow, and shoot it in the chest. In two steps, it was right in front of me, both hands above it’s head to bring them down on me and I was frozen. A loud _POP_ came from somewhere to the side and the Berserker lurches to the side with an angry roar, allowing me to side sweep it. I look in the direction of the pop and see Josh standing on the roof of one of the buildings and he loads another round in.

“I’ll cover you, just kill that thing!” He shouts at us. The Berserker roars at Josh and moves to get to him, but a flash of orange and Sparrow comes in to slice its side. The Berserker stops and tries to swat Sparrow away, but he rolls with the attack and lands near me.

“What the hell is that thing?!” He demands. The Berserker swats at Sparrow and I when I attempt to answer him and we jump out of the way.

“Distract it! I have an idea!” Danielle orders and looks over to Sparrow who seems to have the same idea. They both sprint forward start working in unison; with each gunshot Danielle lets loose, Sparrow comes in to slice the wound and they move around its legs in relative ease. When it tries to move forward or away from the two, I shoot in in the chest with a few arrows to keep it in place. It nearly grabs Sparrow but Josh knocks it back with another shot. Some other guards join in to try and shoot at the Berserker, but with Sparrow and Danielle in close quarters, it’s hard for them to get a headshot in on the thing. Danielle rolls between its legs and blows out one of its knees and it lets out a pained outcry and my heart stops.

It reaches under itself and grabs Danielle around the torso and throws her to the side. She flies several feet before hitting the ground, rolling several more feet, and slamming into a cabin. She stops moving and I can’t see her breathing from here. Sparrow lets out a cry of pain as it swats him away, his sword lodged in its other leg and he rolls away just past me. The Berserker, now with both legs out, uses it’s gorilla like arms and lumbers towards me, its mouth wide open.

There’s my shot. Its three steps away.

Time seemed to slow around me as I breath in, nocking the last arrow in my hand. I have to make this shot count, I can’t afford to miss. I hear Josh shout at me to run but I can’t do that.

Two steps away.

As I pull back the string, I kneel to give myself more of an angle to aim. It reaches its arm back to send me across the camp. I can’t run now. If I don’t kill it with this next shot, it’ll kill me and likely my siblings and everyone else here.

One step.

I can hear Leon shouting at me now as the Berserker swings its huge hands towards me. I let the arrow fly, the fletching tickling my cheek as it sails and hits it’s mark true. It flies through its mouth and into the roof, right into its head. I get the wind knocked out of me as it slams its hand into my back. The bow drops from my hands and I can feel the earth leave my feet as I sail through the air. I don’t know how far I go, but for a moment, I feel weightless.

My head hits something hard as I connect with the ground once more and roll several times into the clay wall motionless. Every part of my body aches as though I was hit with a semi – or body slammed by an overgrown gorilla – instead of being batted away like an annoying puppy. I lay there for a while, letting my lungs fill once again with air. I can hear Octavia and Felix’s voices as they run out of the big house and towards me. I barely manage to get onto my hands and knees as the two of them quickly try to help me stand. My back aches and it hurts to breath, but I think my legs still work, which is important.

“That was so fucking stupid, Cassy!” Octavia nearly cries.

“Is it dead?” I groan, barley having strength to raise my head towards the unmoving giant.

“I think that Leon guy is making sure of it. You need medical attention.” Felix replies sounding panicked.

“I’m fine… What about Danielle and Sparrow?” I ask.

“The katana guy looks fine, but Danielle looks pretty bad.” Octavia replies, sounding like she’s trying not to cry. I force myself to stand on my own and look around at the carnage. The shed we were trapped in is still burning and there are bodies littered everywhere. Sparrow is standing with the help of Jocelynn and I can see Josh and Leon around Danielle trying to see if she’s still alive. I hobble over as quickly as I could to see if she’s alright as well, fear bubbling up under my skin. I hardly know her at all and yet she was ordered to protect me and my siblings, a bunch of complete strangers, and she did exactly that, even if she was a little indifferent about it. When I hobble over, Josh is crouched over her, checking for a pulse on her wrist and Leon is standing by in case if he’s needed. I collapse on my knees near Josh and Danielle.

“Get up you hard-ass! You still have orders to follow!” Josh grunts, shaking her shoulders. I can see her chest move up and then she lurches up in a coughing fit.

“Oh thank god…” I breathe as I deflate, my breath still shaky.

“Are you alright? Nothing broken?” Josh asks when Danielle regains herself.

“I think I cracked a couple ribs, but nothing important.” She breathes and she looks over at me. “It’s dead, right?” I let out a small airy chuckle and immediately regret it, a sharp pain in my back.

“I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t do that again.” I groan, only half teasing.

“If it’s dead and you’re alive, that’s all that matters, right?” She replies as Josh helps her to her feet.

“Throwing yourself in danger isn’t exactly what I meant.” Leon sighs and starts walking back to some guards who are recovering from the Berserker attack. “Somebody get that fire out!” A few able guards scramble to their feet and rush towards The Den and came out a few moments later with extinguishers and Leon starts organizing some other people to get the injured to The Den.

Josh grabs one of Danielle’s arms and heaves her up and instinctively I go to help, grab her other arm and put it over my shoulder to support her other side. It’s a little awkward but she lets it happen and I grab her belt to keep her on her feet. She tries her best to walk with us, but her feet lag behind and truth be told, I’m having a bit of an issue walking myself but I’ve already started helping so it’d be rude to stop now. Josh and I haul her to The Den with Octavia and Felix behind on stand-by in case if they’re needed, but we get to the front door just fine. A few injured people are already here with several others coming in behind us and a lot of them are much less fortunate than we are. There are people who have burns from the fire, gunshot wounds, broken crude arrows sticking out of their bodies, some were bludgeoned or trampled and one of the guards who got hit first by the Berserker was unconscious with a broken arm. We lead Danielle to an empty cot in the medical room and help sit her down, Danielle hissing in pain as she sat.

“If you have anything broken, you’re going to want to lie down.” Josh suggests but Danielle waves dismissively at him.

“He has a point.” I support. “If you do have broken ribs, it’ll be better to lie down so you aren’t putting stress on the breaks.”

“Hah, the patient telling the doctor how to treat her own injuries. Haven’t heard of that one before.” She chuckles. I blink. An actual chuckle. Would you look at that.

“Wait. You’re a doctor?” I ask in disbelief. Danielle? The girl who jumped headlong into a fight with a bunch of bandits _and_ a Berserker? The _same girl,_ mind you, who fought me tooth and nail when we first met this morning? Wow, has it really only been a day?

“In a manner of speaking. I know enough to set bones, stitch up cuts and amputate limbs if that’s what you’re asking.”

I can practically feel Octavia start to get giddy. “Hellooo nurse…” I hear her mutter. Josh snickers as I elbow my sister in the ribs. Danielle scrunches her eyebrows and I hope to God she didn’t hear what my sister said.

“What…?” Danielle eyes us suspiciously. Thank fuck she didn’t hear that.

“Nothing, Octavia’s just being dumb.” I say.

“Okay…” She doesn’t look convinced but she doesn’t question it further. She looks up at me. “Did that thing take a swing at you?” She asks. This girl is full of surprises.

“Well, yeah, but it didn’t do much…” I reply, not expecting the question.

“You kidding? That thing tossed you about eight feet in the air like it was nothing!” Josh laughed.

“Eight feet? It felt higher than that…”

“You should get checked out too. With all of the excitement from today, I’m surprised you don’t have brain damage.” If Danielle wasn’t already injured, I’d hit her, but Octavia, Felix, and Josh laugh so I just roll my eyes.

“I’ve taken harder hits from smug strangers who say hello by holding knives to people’s throats while they’re hunting.” I retort.

Danielle rolls her eyes.

“I saw your hands at the armor shed, get patched up.” Danielle says. It sounds a lot like an order and I don’t want to take orders from her, but at about that time, a tall lanky man who introduces himself as Sterges comes by and Danielle insists that he sees me before he sees her. I groan in protest, but Danielle won’t hear it. Sterges applies an anti-burn crème to my hands and wrap them in a thin gauze before he starts to poke at Danielle’s ribs.

“Cassandra, I need to talk to you and the kids.” I jump a little at Leon’s voice down the hall and my siblings and I exchange glances as we start heading his way. “You too, Josh.” He adds. He looks just as confused as we do but follows us, giving Danielle a short goodbye. We walk out of the hall and follow Leon onto the porch as more injured come inside.

“I won’t bunk you three with a bunch of people you don’t know, so I’ll be putting you in Josh and Danielle’s care. I can’t really talk much tonight, I have to organize this mess, but tomorrow we’ll talk more about your… situation. In the meantime, Josh,” He says and Josh straightens up. “Show these three to your cabin, I’ll send someone your way with dinner.” Leon orders. Josh nods and gestures to us to follow him off the porch and towards a small collection of cabins with several tents pitched around them. Most of the cabins look the same with the exception of the décor some people have. There’s one cabin with a plastic play house in the front and a small trampoline, another cabin with a fire pit, another one with several bikes and toys strewn across the lawn and porch, and a plain cabin with no outside decoration other than a cushioned porch swing. Josh leads us right to the plain cabin.

When he puts the key in the keyhole to unlock the cabin, I can hear furious barking coming from inside and it sounds like a small dog. My siblings and I exchange excited glances; the only dogs we’ve seen are mean stray dogs and attack dogs, but this one sounds small. When he opens the door, a fluffy black and white Corgi bursts through the door and spins around Josh’s feet in a flurry of fur and excited barks.

“He’s so cute! What’s his name? Is he yours?” Octavia all but squeals.

“His name’s Po and he’s actually Danielle’s.” Josh laughs as we walk inside, Po practically jumping around us.

“Po?” I question when he shuts the door behind us.

“Yeah, like from that one fighting panda movie.” He says.

“You mean from Kung Fu Panda? That Po?” I venture. He laughs.

“Yeah, that one! It was Danielle’s idea actually. We found him wandering around before we came here.” Josh explains. I laugh as Po barks happily and runs around the living room area.

Inside the cabin is decorated simply with hardwood floors, a weird looking bear or cow skin rug of some sort in the living room off to the right of the entrance. The living room has two couches and a love seat around a coffee table that’s covered in gun parts and gun cleaning equipment. To the left is a kitchen with a wraparound counter and a bar with bar stools. Josh saw Felix eyeing the refrigerator and laughed.

“It doesn’t work since the power went out. We use it to store guns and ammo Leon lets us keep.” He says.

“You put guns in a refrigerator?”  Felix asks.

“Well, we don’t have a safe, so the fridge is the next best thing we could think of. Here, take a seat. You guys are probably exhausted.” He says and gestures to the couches. My brother and sister plop on one of the couches and I gingerly sit next to them, my body still aching; I’m going to feel it in the morning and it’s going to suck. Po jumps onto the couch and plops in my lap, flops over my chest, and tosses his furry head back onto my shoulder, panting happily. I rub his belly and he licks my cheek a few times before lying on my lap.

“Looks like you have a new little buddy.” Octavia laughs and pets his belly too. Po looks up at her and his tongue sticks out in a happy looking smile. We sit there for about an hour, chatting idly about dogs, guns and speculations on the attack when the front door opens and Danielle hobbles in with Jocelynn behind her holding a couple plates of food.

“What are you doing back so early? I thought Sterges would have wanted you to stay overnight.” Josh says, getting up to help Jocelynn set the plates down on the kitchen counter.

“It’s nothing major, just a couple cracked ribs and a headache. Nothing he needs to keep an eye on.” Danielle replies, sitting heavily in the loveseat. Po jumps out of my lap and into Danielle’s. “I hear you three are going to be staying with us for a bit.” Danielle comments.

“Until we decide to head out, yeah.” I reply.

“Where are you heading?” Jocelynn asks.

“We’re going to Atlanta.” I reply, not really wanting to disclose our ‘mission’ to every stranger we meet.

“Why there? That place is crawling with Biters last I heard.” Danielle comments.

“We’re just looking for someone.” It isn’t exactly a lie, but I can tell that Danielle knows I’m not telling the whole truth judging from my siblings’ reactions. Luckily she doesn’t press the matter though.

“Well, this person must be pretty important to travel all the way down in Biter infested territory.” Josh says as he fixes a couple plates.

“Yeah. She is.” I sigh. We’re quiet for a bit as I gather my thoughts and Josh passes out plates of cooked meat and some fresh vegetables.

“When do you plan on heading out?” Jocelynn asks, sitting on the other couch caddy-corner to the one my siblings’ and I are sitting on. I glance at Felix and Octavia before answering.

“Well, hopefully sometime soon. If you’ll let us, we can stick around to help you clean up from the attack and we can leave after that.” I reply. I don’t want to cut and run, but we do need to go at least within the week. We’ve been delayed too long too many times.

“That sounds agreeable. If you’re going to stay for a bit, we should probably get better acquainted.” Josh suggests.

“Wouldn’t that just make saying good-bye harder, though?” I ask. He shrugs.

“Well yeah, but it’d make it easier on you guys while you’re here to know who you’re staying with, right? Make things a little less awkward considering our meeting.” He replies. He has a point there. We’re pretty antagonistic at this point, joking aside. If it weren’t for Leon, we’d be burnt to a crisp at likely no loss to the camp and Danielle and Josh would have taken care of the Berserker. Octavia and Felix are looking at me probably wondering if it’s alright to talk a little more openly, but I can’t find a point. We’ll be leaving as soon as these guys are able to patch everything up and getting to know us isn’t going to help them with anything. I suppose some more idle chat would make things less tense, but we can’t get attached to these guys. I sigh, caving in.

“I suppose it won’t hurt anything. What do you want to know?” I ask, trying to be friendly.

“I mean if you don’t want to, then – wait what?” Josh is clearly caught off guard.

“What do you want to know?” I repeat with a small smile.

“Honestly I didn’t think I’d get this far. Huh.” He starts to think and Jocelynn laughs.

“Well, I’m curious as to how you can shoot a bow like that. I’ve never seen someone do those kinds of fancy moves.” Jocelynn asks. I can see Danielle perk up a little at this.

“I sort of saw a video about a long time ago when I was in middle school. It looked pretty cool, so I tried it out.” I reply a little sheepishly.

“You just saw a video and _tried_ it out? No one taught you?” Jocelynn asks in amazement.

“Well, I first tried it out in my back yard with my uncle’s hunting bow and nearly shot myself in the foot. My uncle saw me try it and signed me up for archery lessons and it just evolved from there.” I reply.

“Your uncle? What about your parents?” Jocelynn asks.

I glance at my siblings who looked as unresponsive to the question as I felt before I answer. “It was… complicated.” I reply, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up anything bad.” Jocelynn frets and I let out a laugh.

“No, no, don’t worry about it, it was just a mess is all. We were living with my uncle when everything happened.” I say. I don’t want to make her feel bad, but they don’t need to know everything. If Leon knows my parents, then other people likely will, too and they might not have such positive reactions.

“What about you two? I don’t think we actually met, I’m Jocelynn.” She says to my siblings.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Octavia.”

“I’m Felix.”

“What kind of fancy things can you two do? I didn’t see you two out there with your sister.” Jocelynn says. I know it’s probably not what’s going on, but it sounds like she’s trying to gauge our skills for something and I shift uncomfortably but let them answer.

“Well, Cassy didn’t want us to get hurt, so she had us in that big log cabin to help calm down the people who fled there. I’m a really good artist though and I don’t want to brag, but I’m really good at reading people.” Octavia says. I force myself not to roll my eyes. She’s better at talking herself or others in and out of situations than she is at actually holding prolonged conversations, which makes me wonder how in the world she ever managed to land herself two girlfriends and a boyfriend before this mess started, but she continues. “I’m also a pretty good shot with a pistol and I used to play baseball.” She finishes.

“But you didn’t have a pistol when we searched you.” Josh comments.

“We sorta kinda lost it somewhere along the way.” Octavia replies and gives me a sideways glance. I roll my eyes then.

“What about you?” Jocelynn turns to Felix and I can tell that he hates the attention on him.

“W-well, I used to be in the culinary arts club, so I did a lot of cooking. I had a knife collection back home.” He replies sheepishly.

“That’s pretty cool! Hey, maybe you can cook better than Danielle!” Jocelynn teases. Danielle throws a small pillow at her and it bounces harmlessly off her head and Po gives a startled yip at Danielle’s sudden movement.

“It’s Dani actually, and I’m a medic, not a cook. I cook edible meals, not good ones.” She huffs. I raise an eyebrow at her; she hasn’t corrected Leon when he calls her Danielle. I guess it’s because she’s just as intimidated by him as I am, or maybe because he’s the head honcho here.

“Is that why you cauterize the meats instead of actually cooking them?” Josh asks.

“It’s pretty much the same thing. Only difference is that cauterized is just the surface.” Danielle – or Dani I guess – replies nonchalantly.

“What about you guys?” I ask. Josh speaks up.

“Well, you already know that Danielle’s a medic-”

“Dani.”

“But I’m pretty handy with snipers and rifles and Jocelynn makes things go boom.” He finishes.

“Gracefully put.” Jocelynn grins. “I used to be a demolition expert. Well, I still am, but back when things were normal, I was one of the people in charge of getting rid of old buildings and ones that weren’t up to regulation. I could take out one building in Time Square without touching the others around it. I still can, but it’s more fun to take out a block of Biters in one go, you know?” She finishes. I give a nervous smile, vaguely recalling a couple guards talking about someone named Jocelynn who bombed the crap out of a Black Knight out-post. I guess this must be that Jocelynn.

“How old are you guys anyway? You look pretty young to have been wandering around out there all this time.” Josh asks. Now it’s starting to feel more like an interrogation instead of friendly chatter.

“Well that’s a little intrusive.” Octavia beat me to the punch. “Besides, aren’t you guys a little young yourselves to be taking militaristic orders from that Leon guy?” She counters.

“We all have to do our part to protect the camp.” Josh says with a shrug. “Besides, with society fallen, everyone makes their own rules and laws.”

“That doesn’t mean we get to act like barbarians…” Octavia mutters, likely talking about the fight Danielle and I got into when we met in the woods.

“Yeah well, the whole ‘End of the World’ thing drives people to do stupid things that most of them end up regretting later.” Jocelynn adds.

“We’re still people though. If we would just work together to help each other survive instead of assuming that everyone is hostile, we’d have a better chance at surviving.” Felix says. Josh, Danielle, and Jocelynn seem to be surprised at his words.

“That’s very idealistic, but unfortunately there are more people out there who’re more interested in keeping themselves alive instead of working with others. It’s impossible to tell who’s friend and foe nowadays.” Josh replies.

“What about us?” I ask, seeing as how they seem to be reacting differently toward us. Josh and Jocelynn seem taken aback by the question, not really knowing how to answer.

“Leon says we can trust you, but you’re still strangers here. You might have helped protect the camp, but we can’t know for certain who you actually are.” Danielle replies.

I pause at her answer, milking it over. She’s still paranoid, but I _did_ save her ass earlier today. A few times if I remember correctly.

“How about non-antagonistic associate’s? Not quite friends, not exactly enemies.” I suggest. She looks me over with calculating eyes, the storm inside seeming to be suppressed for now, no longer threatening to lash out. After a moment of everyone watching her, she relinquishes with a sigh and a shrug.

“I’ll take it.” She says with a yawn, covering her mouth in an attempt to hide it.

“Looks like you need to sleep.” Jocelynn teased and, to my surprise, Dani nods and goes to stand, though I can see that even moving to cover her mouth was a chore. Without thinking, I stand and go to her side before Josh or Jocelynn and offer her a hand. Dani takes it without hesitation and I grin; baby steps. Carefully helping her to her feet, she leans on me as she leads the way to the back bedroom, which is much cleaner than I was expecting. Two twin size beds with a nightstand and lamp for each, a trunk at the foot of both beds, and two large dressers on either side of the room.

“Thanks, I got it from here.” Dani groans as she stands away from my support and wobbles to one of the beds and heavily sits.

“Do you need anything?” I ask and she lets out a non-comical noise out of her nose.

“Eager to please, much?” She taunts and I turn to leave, taking that as a clear ‘no’. “Wait, Cassandra.” She calls. I pause and glance back at her. She’s leaning forward with one elbow on her knee and most of her upper weight on it, looking in pain with a dash of worry.

“What’s up?” I ask. She looks up at me for a long moment, trying to process whatever it is she’s thinking into words. After a moment of looking contemplative, she finally sighs.

“Thank you. For helping me protect my family.” She says. I don’t expect it and I smile at her.

“With bravado like yours, someone has to look out for you, She-Ra.” I tease and Dani rolls her eyes at me.

“You can look out for me by looking out for yourself and your family, Pinky.” She returns. I chuckle as I walk out to the living room in time to see Jocelynn saying her goodnights to everyone.

“I’m glad you’re staying for a bit, even if it _is_ just for repairs. We’re lucky you guys are decent people.” She says, shaking my hand.

“We can say the same to you. I thought we’d be staying the night in a shed, or worse, with how this morning went. I’m glad it didn’t come down to that.” I reply.

“Ha! You might be singing a different toon after a couple nights with Dani!” Jocelynn laughs.

“I heard that!” Dani calls from the bedroom.

“It wasn’t meant to be quiet, sweetheart!” Jocelynn calls back with a smile.

“I’m sure I’ll be singing a _bunch_ of different toons after a couple nights with her.” Octavia mutters, her face disgustingly dreamy again and I elbow her hard in the ribs. I’m sure Jocelynn didn’t hear what my sister said, but she chuckles all the same as she watches the two of us banter for the next few moments.

“Really though, don’t be too hard on her. She’s doing her best to help keep this place afloat. Goodnight, you guys, we’ll see you tomorrow bright and early for repairs!” With that, she made her exit and Josh locked the door behind her.

“Here, let me show you to the room you guys will be sleeping in. There are two beds and plenty of space for whatever you guys have.” Josh says and leads us to another room adjacent to his and Dani’s. The room pretty much mirrors theirs and right across the hall is the bathroom, which Octavia is eyeing happily. 

“Don’t get your hopes up too much, there’s running water, but no electricity.” Josh points out.

“I can shower in the dark!” She dismisses and Josh laughs.

“He also means there’s no _hot_ water, Oli.” I clarify. Octavia’s excitement dies as fast as an ember thrown in water and she mopes into the bedroom.

“I couldn’t care less about the shower, I’m just glad to finally have a toilet!” Felix says happily and rushes in with Josh and I laughing after him. When Felix closes the bathroom door behind him, I pat Josh on the shoulder.

“Never thought I’d say this, but thank you for bringing us here. If you’d have told us that all this would have happened, I probably would have shot you.” I tell him and he chuckles.

“And then today probably would have happened anyway. You guys get rest, I’ll deal with grumpy pants.” Josh said and left to his and Dani’s room, gently closing the door a crack as he disappeared on the other side.

“Well, today was fun.” Octavia comments, flopping onto one of the beds.

“You mean besides the Berserker? And harassing Dani?” I ask.

“I never harassed her, just some of my thoughts became more public than the others. And no, the Berserker was a cluster fuck I hope never happens again.” Octavia sighs, wiggling into the sheets after tossing her jacket and shirt to the floor. “Why can’t we stay here, Cassy? Besides the Widowmakers, this place is pretty great.”

“Mom said-”

“No offense, but honestly _fuck_ mom. She sends her kids on a stupid bullshit suicide mission to deliver a piece of tacky jewelry to a disease center and never even told us why. I say we stop chasing this goose and actually settle here for a while.” Octavia said.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I’m being serious, Cass. I’d rather stay here and deal with real threats and help real people than be a stupid delivery girl for someone who might not be alive.”

“Octavia.”

“I’m just saying, Mom had several screws loose when she last called us, she’s probably dead now.”

“ _Octavia_!”

She stops and looks at me, worry on her face.

“Just… Stop talking like that. She’s alive.” If only for the sake of Felix and Octavia. “She’s alive, Oli. We’re finishing this mission and making sure that the people who got us this far didn’t die in vain. Alright?”

I know she can see the seriousness in my face and hear it in my voice and she reluctantly nods. Felix comes in then and, upon seeing the looks on our faces, his own expression falls.

“Did I miss something?” He asks.

“Octavia just farted is all.” I lie.

“Eww, Oli! There’s a bathroom over there!” Felix gags.

“Sorry little bro, you were hoggin’ it up and when nature calls forth it’s winds, it’s best to just let them go.” She makes a windy noise as she tosses her hand out, mimicking the wind and Felix looks to me pleadingly.

“Can I sleep with you tonight?” Felix begs.

“Nope, last in the room sleeps with stinky butt.” I tease and he groans, reluctantly climbing into bed with Octavia. I climb into bed myself after closing the door behind him and I blow out the candles, getting comfortable for the first time in years.

“Sleep well, guys. I love you.” I say.

“Love you too, sis.” They reply together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I BELIEVE I CAN FLY
> 
> Also, Dani's doin' her best. They all are, really.
> 
> Matt is a DICK


	4. Chapter Three: Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We all have ghosts that haunt us. Some of them are just afterimages of walking in on Nana changing (yikes), others are actual monsters that plague our waking minds. Sorry, Nana, this chapter isn't about you.
> 
> This time...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dani doesn't like Matt. Already been established, but I felt like I should reiterate it.
> 
> Dani does NOT like Matt.
> 
> At all.
> 
> End of story.

I wake up to an eerie blackness enveloping the unfamiliar space around me. My body is heavy, like lead, and feels like it’s being dragged down into the bed. The silence rings out in my head, deafening, pulling, drowning, and I can’t hear my siblings in the room with me. I sit up.

I’m sitting in my bed at home, light filtering into the room through the open window and birds are singing in the tree just outside of it. A gentle gust of wind disturbs my curtains and I sigh in relief.

“It was just a dream…” I mutter, rubbing sleep from my eyes and pulling the sheets off me.

Downstairs, Uncle Tommy is cooking breakfast, listening to ACDC and jamming out, waving the spatula around like a microphone as the pancakes cook on either side.

“Hey Sassy Cassy, you’re up early!” Uncle Tommy greets me cheerfully, not looking at me.

“Yeah, I just… I had a really weird dream and it woke me up.” I reply, sitting at the table as he continues to cook.

“What was it about?” He asks, his focus on the food.

“Felix, Octavia, and I. There was some weird sickness that turned people into cannibals.” I tell him, taking a look at the newspaper sitting at Tommy’s seat, the headline blurry. I blink hard and rub my eyes again. “Mom called in it, too. Told us to bring some locket to her in Georgia, said that it was really important.”

“Well your mom did call, that’s for sure. Said she’ll be here in a few moments for your birthday! Isn’t that exciting?” Uncle Tommy asks.

That’s right, my birthday is today, isn’t it? I can’t believe that it slipped my mind… How old am I now?

“Why don’t you wake up your siblings for breakfast? Your mother will be here in a few moments.” Tommy suggests.

“Yeah, yeah I’ll do that.” I wander upstairs to my siblings rooms and it gets noticeably darker. “Oli? Felix? Time to wake up, Mom’s gonna be here soon!” I call out to them. There’s a wild movement from one of their rooms, like a scuffle or someone diving to the ground for something.

“Octavia?” I call, approaching the room it came from. The door was cracked, but no light came out of it. “Octavia, I know you’re awake! You better hide your girlfriend before mom comes in and-” The door bursts open and something not quite Octavia comes charging out of it. Her skin is a pale gray with black veins, blood pooling from her mouth and her eyes are wide and dilated. She charges at me as I give a yelp of surprise, side stepping her as she runs into Felix’s room, the door slamming shut behind her.

“Octavia?! Felix!” I shout and pound on the door, trying to twist the knob but it just won’t turn, my hands can’t find a grip as though they were slathered in lotion. “Felix! Octavia!” I shout. I step back to kick the door down but when I do, the door creaks open to the outside. The Den is on fire and I can hear their screams from inside. I body slam into the door and fire engulfs me, turning my vision black and everything is hot.

“…sandra…”

“Mom? Mom!”

“Cassandra…”

“I’m right here, where are you?!” My voice is shrill and everything hurts and moving only makes it worse. Something touches my shoulder and my hand shoots out to grab it, my eyes flying open as I bolt up, taking in a deep breath as though I had forgotten to. Dani’s standing over me, a hint of worry on her face as she watches me gasp for air like a fish out of water and I realize that she had been trying to shake me awake. I barely register that it’s her wrist in my iron grip, but when I do, I quickly let go and sigh, relaxing by degrees.

“Must have been one Hell of a nightmare.” Dani comments flatly.

“It still is…” I mutter. I realize that Dani had removed her hand then, letting it linger a few seconds longer after I let her go. I glance around the room and notice that the bed is made and the sun is high in the air. “What happened to ‘bright and early’?” I ask and Dani gives a dry chuckle at that.

“They wanted to let us rest longer since we got batted around like flies yesterday. I only woke up a few minutes ago to this.” Dani hands me a hand written note signed by Josh at the bottom.

_‘Cass and Dani, the siblings and I wanted to let you two rest a little while longer considering you two were tossed around like a dog toy last night. Leon wants to talk to you two as soon as you’re up and about, and specifically said to talk to him_ after _breakfast. He’ll know if you try to talk to him before. ~Josh’_

“Well wasn’t that nice of him?” I chuckle and Dani rolls her eyes.

“I’m hurt, not incapacitated. He should have woken me up.” Dani retorts.

“Please, I’m sure you’re pride will be just fine. Come on, show me where breakfast is, I’m starving!” I reply as I pull on my boots.

Dani leads the way out of the cabin and locks it behind her, pocketing the keys as she takes me to the center of the camp with the least damage. Most of the able-bodied campers are already here, taking a break from reconstruction and cleaning duty. Luckily all of the bodies have been dragged out of camp last night and taken to what Dani calls the ‘Burn Pits’. Apparently when enemies or Biters are killed in camp, they burn the bodies away from the camp to prevent other enemies and Biters from running into the camp.

The smell of fresh cooking eggs, veggies, and meat draws me in as we walk closer to everyone. Despite their injuries, everyone is in a much lighter mood than I would have expected them to be in. There’s idle chatter around wooden picnic tables, a few children playing around with one another, and I spot Josh, Octavia, Felix, and Jocelynn talking at one of the tables. Dani and I quickly grab a plate and join them.

“Morning sleeping beauties!” Octavia greeted, clearing a space next to her that was intended for Dani, but Dani sat on the other side of Jocelynn and I end up taking the seat Octavia cleared, if only to save her the embarrassment.

“You seem chipper this morning. Anything interesting while we were dead to the world?” I ask, taking a big, savory bite out of the meat, instantly recognizing it as rabbit.

“Not really. Felix and I helped with repairing some of the cabins that got burnt and Josh and Jocelynn were helping fix the gate.” Octavia replies.

“The gate’s pretty busted up. It got ripped right off the hinges and took out a section of the wall with it.” Jocelynn adds.

“How long until we can get it fixed?” Dani asks.

“That’s the kicker. We can’t fix it. The best we can do is a patch job. It has to be replaced entirely.” Josh answers.

Dani chokes on her food at the news and I sigh; that sounds like it’ll take a long time to get done.

“Replaced? With what materials? The last of the lumber we had reserved for building got burnt in the raid!” Dani huffs.

“That’s part of what Leon wants to talk to you two about after breakfast.” Josh replies, and that gets her moving. She stands up and grabs my shoulder, pulling me away from the table and the food.

“Come on, we’re going to talk to him.” Dani demands.

“But I’m not done eating yet! And the coffee!” I whine, snatching my plate as she drags me off to the Den and missing my coffee in the next swipe.

“Take it to go, then!” Dani snaps as she yanks me along, hobbled injured girl leading hobbled injured girl to the big house. I’m not even halfway done with the rabbit when Dani bursts into the office, startling Leon enough where he inhales half his coffee and spills the rest on his lap. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, sighing out his nose. I take a hesitant bite out of my rabbit and attempt to wiggle out of Dani’s grip, but she holds on tightly, determination burning in her eyes that I wish she would have saved for after I finished eating.

“Glad to see you two are feeling better so soon after your injuries.” Leon spoke evenly.

“I mean, everything still hurts but-” I try but Dani interrupts me.

“We’re fine, nothing a nights rest couldn’t fix. What are we going to do about the gate?” Dani demands. I take another bite out of my rabbit, glancing between the two and wondering why I’m here.

“Right to the point as always…” He sighs, standing up and grabbing a towel to pat himself dry. “As you saw yourself last night, the last of our building materials were burned in yesterday’s raid and nothing is salvageable. The scouts and I had a meeting early this morning about what could be done and one of them suggested the old lumber yard a few miles west of here.” He brings out a map of the area, marked in different colored markers with several X’s, O’s, and boxed in areas around the highlighted camp labeled ‘burn pits’.

“Wait, the lumber yard? MJ’s Lumber Co?” I ask through a mouthful of breakfast.

“Do you know it?” Leon asks. I gulp my mouthful and take a long hard look at the map.

“Yeah, my siblings and I were there several days ago for supplies and shelter from that storm that blew through. You don’t want to go there, though.” I reply and they both look up at me.

“And why not? It’s the only place around here with the cut wood we need. We’re not exactly lumbermen and carpenters if you hadn’t noticed.” Dani huffs, a hand on her hip and the other on the table.

“Last time we were there, a _huge_ group of Biters were moving through the area, hunting it clean of people _and_ animals.” I respond.

“And we’re just now hearing about this?!” Dani exclaims, glaring at me incredulously. I quickly back up out of her face, not wanting to get into another fight with her.

“They were coming in from the Southwest area! They’ll miss the camp if they keep their heading!” I explain quickly and pause. “Unless last night draws them…”

Leon nods gravely as though he had already thought of it, but Dani’s eyes go wide at the implication.

“So we could have hundreds of Biters marching straight for camp and our door is just wide open?” Dani mutters and I can already see a storm of thoughts swirling around in her head as her eyes scrunch in thought. “You know where the lumber yard is, right?” She asks, turning to me.

“Did you not hear me about the _hoard_ of infected heading this way _from_ said lumber yard?”

“What are you planning, Dani?” Leon asks and she turns to face him.

“How many scouts do we have uninjured?” She asks.

“Two. Matthew and Dennis.” He answers.

“I’m thinking we can send the two of them out in that direction to figure out if we really do have a hoard coming, and if we do, they can figure out where it’s coming from and how fast they’ll be here. Once they report back, we can send a team around the hoard to get what we need and get back here to build the gate.” Dani suggests.

“That’ll take too much time though. They weren’t moving that fast, but they were also several hours away. By the time your scouts find the hoard and get back here, their information won’t be viable!” I respond.

“Do you have a better idea?” She demands.

“Yeah, take apart some of the buildings we have now for spare wood to build the gate and reinforce it with some vehicles!” I reply.

“Take apart the buildings? Everything we have is important! What would you suggest we take apart?!” Dani exclaims. I open my mouth to respond with a snide comment, but both of us hear Leon clear his throat and I snap my mouth shut.

“Might I make a suggestion, ladies,” he says and we both glance his way. “We will take apart the armory and move the stock to the basement of The Den, and use the lumber from the shed to make a gate. We won’t have time to send scouts if they’re as close as Cassandra say they are, so we’ll send a team to get the wood. If the Biters are too close to the camp, they’ll turn around and come back to help evacuate everyone. If the scouts deem that they’re a safe enough distance to get the lumber and come back to help build, they will do so. Are we in agreement?”

I glance at Dani, who seems to think over the plan a dozen and a half times in her head, working out every detail she hears.

“The camp will be safe in a relative sense while the scouts are out in both situations. Who are we sending?” Dani responds. Leon looks between the two of us and I groan.

“Cassandra, you know exactly where the lumber yard is, having been there yourself.” Leon says.

“I’m still recovering from being thrown eight feet by a giant hairless gorilla, too.” I remind him, gesturing to all of the bandages the first aid cabin put me in.

“Everyone we can send is still recovering and I’m sure you wouldn’t want us to send your siblings by themselves.” Leon replies. I glance at Dani, knowing I probably won’t get any help from her, but even she looks hesitant on the matter.

“Sir, if I may, Cassandra does have a point. Being as injured as she is, she won’t make it very far.” Dani comments.

“That’s why you’ll be going with her.” Leon adds.

“I – wait what?”

“You, Joshawa, Dennis, Matthew, and Cassandra will be our scouts and lumber retrieval group.” He says. I open my mouth for an argument he sees coming and he holds up a hand to make me wait as he continues. “Danielle has medical experience, having shadowed Sturges during her time here. Matthew and Dennis are our best and fastest scouts with the sharpest eyes, and Joshawa is the sharpest shooter and fastest supply runner. He also would go regardless of if I let him or not.”

I know he has a point, but I really don’t like it. We’ll be out there, injured, and trying to sneak lumber past a hoard of hungry Biters. On top of that, we would need a vehicle, which is loud, with a trailer, which is also loud. We could end up catching the attention of the hoard and getting ourselves trapped at the lumber yard – or worse. But it’s also the only plan that might be able to work in keeping everyone safe. I let out a sigh, and glance at Dani, who I notice is already looking at me with an inquisitive eye.

“Alright. It’s not ideal, since we’ll need a vehicle and a trailer for enough lumber to make a difference, but we can make it work.” I say.

“Good. Then get the others and brief them quickly. You leave as soon as you’re ready.” Leon says and dismisses us. Dani leads me back to the main yard where everyone is finishing up breakfast and we spot the people we need.

“So what’d he want you two for?” Octavia asks as we approach.

“You were gone for a hot second, must have been important.” Felix adds.

“Where’s Matt? We unfortunately need his presence.” Dani asks, ignoring their questions.

“Lookin’ for me already? It’s not even noon yet and you already need me.” My lip curls at his voice and I can see him making his way over to us from the wall, a sway to his walk like he thinks it’ll win anyone over.

“Keep it professional, Murphy, or I might just have to wire that mouth of yours shut.” Dani orders.

“Oooh, kinky. Professional it is then, Ma’am. What orders from the general?” Matt asks with a smug grin I want to punch him for. I don’t know how Dani keeps her cool around him.

“Leon wants us to go to MJ’s Lumberyard to get materials for the gate. Now.” Dani says.

“Oh sweet! I’ll get my things!” Octavia pipes up but I grab her shoulder.

“Uh, no. Not you two. You guys are staying here and helping the rest of the camp move the armory into the Den’s basement and then you’re going to help them take it apart and repair the gate while we’re gone, understand?” I say.

“What?! Why do we have to stay here and you get to go have all the fun?” Octavia complains.

“Because I’m your big sister and I said so.”

“Oh please, we’re only a year apart! You’re, like, what? Twenty four? Felix and I are plenty old enough to make these choices ourselves! He’s the youngest and he’s old enough to drink now!” Octavia exclaims.

“Listen, O. You and Felix have important jobs to do here while we’re gone. Remember that lumberyard we were at a few days ago? That’s where we’re going. Remember how much you hated it there?”

“Oh, _that_ lumberyard? Yeah, you guys have fun out there with all of those freaky fucks.”

I chuckle. For how much she’s seen in the apocalypse, she still hates bugs and mice and rats. Octavia hasn’t changed much and I’m glad to see it.

“That’s what I thought. Okay, I’m leaving you in charge of Felix until I get back, alright? We shouldn’t be gone for long.” I tell them.

“How long exactly are you going to be gone for? You didn’t really tell us what’s going on.” Felix replies. I glance back to the Den in time to see Leon stepping out with a couple scouts and I catch his eye. He nods at me in acknowledgement as he walks over to the ruined platform.

“You’ll find out here in a second. Dani, Josh, Matt, some guy named Dennis, and I have to go get ready to head out.” I look back at Dani as I finish. “Who _is_ Dennis, anyway?”

“You’ve already met him actually. He prefers to go by Sparrow.” Josh replies. Oh, the dude with the orange handkerchief and the fuckin’ samurai sword.

“He went over to the armory earlier this morning to do inventory since Dani was asleep. I’ll let him know he’s wanted on the mission.” Josh says and heads off, leaving Dani and I with Matt. Dani promptly heaves the bag of guns in the bed of the truck, barely missing Matt by a hair, and he sits up.

“Been a while since we’ve been on a mission, huh Danielle?” Matt asks. Dani doesn’t pay any attention to him, instead making sure that the trailer is hitched correctly and goes to the back seat to make sure we have everything we need between the five of us.

“Aw, come on, don’t be like that!” Matt wines, dramatically leaning over the side of the truck in a vain attempt to get her attention. When he sees that it clearly won’t work, he huffs, tossing his attention my way. “Cassandra, right? You’re pretty small to have survived all this, even with your siblings. How old are you?”

“Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a lady her age?” I respond, hoping that Josh and Sparrow come back soon.

“It’s the apocalypse, babe, excuse me for forgetting my manners.” He huffs. “So are you going to answer my question?”

“I’m old enough to kick your ass, happy? And don’t call me ‘babe’. Cassandra is fine.”

“Ah, so we have _two_ rough and tumble ladies here!”

“Matthew I swear to God if you don’t stop harassing her, I’m going to sick Sparrow on you.” Dani threatens from the back seat.

“Calm down, geez! Just trying to have a little fun before our suicide mission.” He grumbles, going back to lay in the bed of the truck. Dani’s glaring at him and when she notices me watching her, she makes a face. It takes me by surprise so suddenly that I can’t even think to stop the eruption of laughter as I double over. My sides heave painfully as I try and utterly fail to stop laughing and Matt says something over the edge of the truck, which only makes me laugh harder because I know the face Dani made was meant for him. I catch Dani’s eyes and she’s trying her best not to smile, but the corners of her mouth are twitching with effort and she’s trying her best to keep her head down. It’s hard to do that though when you’re watching someone’s face turn as red as a cherry and trying not to trip over themselves.

It hurts to laugh, to be fair, but _God_ it feels nice. Three years of the shit constantly hitting the fan, consistently knee deep in trouble at all times; it feels so _nice_ to finally be able to laugh, openly and about something that’s actually funny, instead in the face of death because it’s the only thing you can do to keep yourself sane.

I think I’ll have that stupid face engrained in my memory for a long, long time now. Thanks Dani.

“Did, uh. Did we miss something?” Sparrow’s voice catches my attention and I’m finally calm enough now to control my breathing.

“Did Matt actually say something funny?” Josh adds.

“It can only be funny if he’s not the one who says it.” Sparrow replies.

“You’re not wrong there.” Dani replies.

“Well fuck you very much.” Matt huffs.

“Anyway,” Sparrow continues and Matt seems to be glad for whatever distraction. “Josh told me what we’re up against. Do we have a game plan?” Everyone looks at me suddenly and I stop chuckling altogether.

“What, you expect _me_ to come up with this plan?”

“You’ve been there before.” Dani comments.

“You know the way there.” Sparrow adds.

“You also know what we’re up against.” Josh puts in.

“And you happened to have agreed to this little debacle. So, congrats on that one.” Matt finishes.

I groan, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Alright, fine. Just,” I sigh. “Give me a second. The last time my siblings and I were at the lumber yard was about two days ago. We were there for a few days and left when I spotted the hoard. They weren’t moving very fast, it looked like a migration path.”

“A migration path?” Josh asks.

“Yeah, it’s weird, we’ve seen hoards like that move areas when winter comes in, but a few still stay in one place. They were moving away from here, but at a slow, traveling pace. A few groups from the hoard would break off to hunt what they could.” I explain.

“Wait, so they migrate _and_ they hunt in an organized fashion?” Matt asks.

“Yeah. What rock have _you_ been living under?”

“This one, smart ass.”

I sigh.

“Okay, so, even though they’re infected, and they hunt and eat people, they’re still alive. They still require food and shelter. They’re pretty much like any other kind of pack animal. So are we if you think about it.” I explain.

“How do you know all this?” Dani asks, the question lined with concern.

“Traveling for three years with not much else to do but survive, I had to pick up a hobby to keep myself from going crazy. I’ve been watching their behavior and recording it.” I say, bringing out my worn-out journal. Pages are loose and several are stained with blood and muck, but it’s all legible. Dani takes it gingerly from my hands, her eyes wide in amazement and Sparrow, Josh, and Matt all crowd around it.

“So you’ve just been watching those things?” Josh asks. I shrug.

“If we have to survive in the same world as them, might as well learn about them. Better to avoid something because you know about it than to learn about it the hard way.” I reply.

“This is amazing, though! This information could really help our scouts with expansion!” Sparrow says.

“You can’t have the book, but I can copy down the information for you guys when this all blows over.” I don’t want to lose that book to be honest. Too much work and too many close calls went into getting that information, I’m not about to give it to someone else without making them work for it.

“So they’re intelligent to some degree…” Dani mutters, ignoring the chatter around her and flipping through the journal like picture book, engrossed in the information. She stops on one of the pages and squints, looking confused, and I’m pretty sure I know what page she’s looking at. “What is this? You refer to it as a Banshee, but there’s not a lot of info on it.”

“There’s a reason for that, too.” I mutter darkly. They all silently wait until I speak again. “The only things I know about them is that they’re big, they’re fast, and they’re blind, but they have impossibly good hearing. Even a whisper is enough to get its attention.” I explain.

“Why do you call it a Banshee?” Sparrow asks, morbidly curious.

“You can always tell when one’s around because it’ll scream when it hears prey in its area.” I say.

“But why does it scream if it’s supposed to hunt?” Josh asks. I shrug.

“I don’t really know. I’ve only come across two before, and I heard it scream each time. It’ll do it a few times during the hunt, I guess to get the prey moving or something.”

“So what do we do if we come across one?” Sparrow asks.

“Run like Hell.” Matt scoffs.

“Did you not hear me say that it’s _fast_?” I spit.

“Yeah, I heard you. I also heard you say that it’s big, too. Big things can’t make sharp turns like we can.” He says.

I stare at him. How has this fuck-wad survived _three years_ in the apocalypse? Seriously, how?

“Besides,” He grins. “I don’t have to outrun it, just you guys.” Before anyone else can say anything, Dani lashes out at him, grabbing Matt by the scruff of the neck and pulling him in dangerously close.

“If you ever think about splitting up the group under _any_ circumstances, you won’t survive long enough to have to deal with Leon, do you understand me?” Dani growls, and for a split second, Matt actually looks scared at the threat. But just in half a second, his usual ‘cool guy’ mask falls back into place and he gives a nervous smirk.

“What are you gonna do? Punch me to death?” He taunts, goading her on.

“She might not, but I sure as hell will.” Sparrow rumbles. Matt tosses his attention his way.

“You’re too short to reach me, half-pint.” Matt chuckles.

“I have a sword that can fix that.” Sparrow threatens.

I catch movement from the corner of my eye as the two continue to banter and spot Leon walking our direction. Not wanting him to think that the group is already imploding without even making it outside the gates, I hesitantly touch Dani’s shoulder. As if she wasn’t tense enough in the situation, her shoulders stiffen even more at my touch and her eyes flick in my direction. Our eyes meet and I can feel her relax in degrees. I nod my head in Leon’s direction, a small warning to let her know that he’s watching. She silently sighs, closing her eyes, and lets go of Matt, who scrambles away from her, straightening his jacket and shirt.

“Is everything alright over here? Why haven’t you left yet?” Leon asks once he’s close enough.

“Everything’s fine. We were going over our game plan for when we get there. A spider crawled on Matt’s shirt during the debrief and I took care of it.” Dani explained. Leon raises an eyebrow in vague interest, glancing between Dani and Matt. Luckily Matt makes no move to call her bluff and Dani’s poker face is on point. Appearing satisfied with the answer, he nods and hands me a map.

“In case you get lost on the way back. Be safe.” He says, watching as we get the last of our gear in the truck and load up. Josh pulls the truck to the gate where four guards are waiting to push open the makeshift doors and we haul the trailer out, on our way to the lumber yard.

I really hope the hoard isn’t here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EVERYTHING IS FINE
> 
> EVERYTHING IS 100% OKAY
> 
> N O P A N I C H E R E
> 
> Kidding :)


	5. Chapter Four: Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the gate destroyed, Leon puts a small team together to get supplies to repair it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The most I have to say about this chapter is the fact that it's one of my favorites that I've written. 
> 
> Yeah, that's really about it. I'm not gonna excuse myself for this

“Fuckin Hell there’s a lot of them!”

“We only have half of what we need!”

“Get the lumber in the truck!”

“Lumber isn’t going to stop these fuckers!”

“Josh, barricade those doors!”

_SSSSSCCCRRRRREEEEEEEEECCCCCCCHHHHHH!!!!!_

“Fuck, the Banshee’s found us again!”

All it took was half an hour for everything to go to shit. In terms of absolute cluster-fucks, this isn’t the fastest anything has gone down in my experience, but everything went from zero to one hundred in a matter of minutes.

The first ten minutes of the ride was quiet. Matt rode in the bed of the truck, Josh drove, Sparrow kept watch in the passenger side, and Dani and I were in the back seat, not sparing Matt a second glance.

Matt knocked on the back window to get our attention and, reluctantly, we opened it to see what he wanted.

“There’s something in the woods out here!” He shouted over the noise of the truck.

“Biter?” I asked.

“Don’t know, it’s the size of a bear and keeping up with the truck!”

That’s when we heard it. You can’t miss a screech like that; it’s like nails on a chalk board but amplified ten fold, drowning out everything else around it. It’s like a war cry on a battle field, more than enough to get your attention and let you know that you’re boned.

And man, were we.

“Oh shit!” was the last thing we heard Matt yell before the truck lurched sideways, something massive and leathery slammed itself into my side of the truck, shattering the window. We heard a series of thumps, Matt trying to stay in the bed of the truck while he attempted to fend off the Banshee.

“Cass, duck!” Dani shouted. I didn’t know what she was planning, but I listened as a long and sharp appendage was thrust through the broken window right where my head was seconds ago, followed shortly by the loud ring of a shotgun blasting it off the truck. Dani loaded another round as Josh corrected the vehicle.

“Josh, swerve!” Matt shouted, and Josh twisted the wheel hard, careening us to the left. The truck stumbled as a loud crash erupted behind us. The Banshee had landed on the trailer just as we turned, sending the trailer and the Banshee on it pitching straight into the side of a huge pine tree. It’s pained shriek filled the forest, and everything went quiet.

We stayed alert the rest of the way to the lumber yard, but we weren’t prepared for it to be occupied by the hoard.

We rushed it.

We drove through them, plowing over dozens of Biters while Matt and Dani shot after ones that got too close.

And then we locked ourselves in the warehouse.

“Josh, barricade those doors!”

_SSSSSCCCRRRRREEEEEEEEECCCCCCCHHHHHH!!!!!_

“Fuck, the Banshee’s found us again!”

Now we’re here, surrounded completely by Biters, no trailer, and a Banshee trying to find a way inside.

“We don’t have room in the bed for the lumber we need!” Sparrow shouts over the sound of the Biters banging on the walls and doors.

“Fuck the lumber, let’s just get out of here!” Matt yells.

“The people back at camp are depending on us to get these materials back to them, and we’re going to do just that! The mission hasn’t changed!” Dani exclaims, shooting a Biter that climbed through one of the windows.

“Wait!” I shout. “I remember there being a stack of sheet metal further in the warehouse! For roofing! Down this way, it’s enough to fit!” I don’t wait for them to follow as I sprint further into the warehouse, passing several alcoves of lumber piles until I get the end where a small pile of scrap sheet metal is leaned against the wall.

“Josh, get that truck down here!” Dani is right behind me and looks back at me. “How much do you think we’ll need?”

“Most, if not all of it probably. With it’s durability, we won’t need near as much of this as we would the lumber.” I explain as Josh backs the truck up to the pile as fast as he dares. I can finally see the damage the Banshee inflicted; huge scratch marks score the sides and holes as big around as the neck of a beer bottle are punctured all throughout the sides where the Banshee hung onto the truck.

“Come on, let’s get this shit in the bed and get out of here!” Dani barks and we all start heaving the sheets into the truck.

A loud crack sounds at the front of the warehouse, followed by the call of the Banshee.

“This is enough, let’s go!” Matt shouts.

“That’s the only exit here! The other was blocked off a while ago and we can’t plow through it!” I explain.

“So what, we’re trapped?” Sparrow asks, fear creeping into his voice and face.

“We’re fine, alright? We just need to keep quiet, and draw it away from the truck long enough to get away.” I reason calmly, hoping that I look calmer than I feel.

“How are we supposed to do that? Everything is loud here!” Matt yelps.

“Just stay in the truck, I have an idea.” I groan. It’s a really stupid idea, but then again, I seem to be the queen of them.

“What are you planning on doing?” Dani asks, grabbing my wrist as I turn to run off.

“I’m about to make a _lot_ of noise!”

“Then I’m going with you!” She declares, grabbing her shotgun and loading a round in the chamber. For a moment, I'm awestruck. The other day, Dani was ready to kill me to protect the camp, and now she's here, ready to help me with a crazy stupid plan that's likely to get us both killed. I snap out of it when I hear another crack of the Biters getting through the doors.

"Hurry up then! Josh, get the truck running and be ready to move on my signal!"

"What's the signal?!"

"You'll know!"

And I sprint off to the steps leading to the second landing of the warehouse, Dani hit on my heels. I reach a window and look out to dozens of Biters surrounding the building. There's an overhang under the window, a silo, and large ducts connecting the warehouse to the factory.

"We'll climb over on that and get in through the roof vent. Generator room is in the basement and the control room is on the second story." I explain.

"I can get the generators, and you-”

“No, it takes two people to turn the generators on! We’ll have to do it together!” I start to climb out onto the overhang when Dani stops me with a dead serious look in her eyes.

“Can I trust you?” She demands. I blink, surprised at the question.

“I don’t think now is the time to be having this conversation, Dani! That’s not a decision I can make for you!” I exclaim. For a split second, she looks perplexed, but shakes it off and lets go. I climb out onto the overhang and wait for Dani to follow. Once I’m sure she’s behind me, we both run to the ducts connecting the buildings together.

It’s a narrow climb, and not one I’m very fond of, especially with nothing but the duct itself to hang on to while we make our way over.

And we’re suspended over dozens of Biters three stories high.

Oh yeah, this has anxiety written all over it.

“I’ll go first.” Dani declares, and before I can argue back, she looks me in the face. “I’m bigger than you, so if I make it across, it’ll definitely hold your weight.” She explains.

“If it breaks under you, I won’t be able to get you up! _And_ I won’t be able to get to the factory!” I argue.

“If I fall, the sound from the crash will be enough to draw that Banshee and you will be able to escape to warn the camp!” She argues back. “I’m _going_ first!”

She starts for the duct, but paranoia gets to the better of me and I grab her hand. She whips around and opens her mouth to say something, but I speak first. “You won’t fall.” She closes her mouth and pauses, taken aback, but quickly recovers and gives a curt nod. I let go and she grabs the duct and starts climbing as fast as she safely dares. The duct groans under her weight, having not been used in a while and not used to the weight of a person. For several intense seconds, I’m afraid she’ll fall or slip or the duct will break, but she manages to make it to the other side and climb into the window just above it.

“Come on, it’s clear!” She shouts over. I gulp and cast a glance down at the hoard; none of them have noticed us yet, it’s now or never. I grab the duct and start climbing.

It’s smoother than I expected it would be, but luckily my boots have decent grips to grab the grooves and I manage not to slip back down. Sharp whines and cracks sound with every movement I make, steadily increasing my paranoia, but it’s the loud _SNAP_ that catches my attention. I’m a little over halfway there when the section I’m on suddenly drops a foot, disconnecting to the last section I need to crawl over. The supports holding this section are slowly breaking one by one and my chest aches from my heart pounding against my rips.

“Cass, jump!” Dani shouts as the duct drops another few inches.

I don’t have a choice. She won’t be able to get the generators on by herself if I fall, and if the sudden stop at the end doesn’t kill me, the hoard whose attention I grabbed will. I carefully roll back on my toes and inch forward as another support snaps. There’s only two left holding me up and Dani is leaning out of the window as far as she can with her hand extended.

“Do it!”

I leap forward, landing on the next section, now two away from Dani, whose eyes are as wide as saucers. There’s a loud crash as the section I was just on – and all the ones connected to it – collapse on the hoard below.

Now they certainly know where we are.

And man, are they angry.

This section doesn’t last as long as the last and I have to scramble to the next as it falls to the void of teeth and claws below. I leap to the last section, just under the window, and slip when I land. My heart catches in my throat, everything is tense, and I can see a sea of hungry grabbing hands reaching out for me, wishing nothing more than to rip me apart into their next meal.

I can’t even scream. The sound catches and dies in my throat just as fast as I think to do it. The only thing running through my mind is the regret of not giving my siblings the locket before I left. The mission will die with me, and none of the others know about it either. I have enough time to look up and watch Dani. I can see the look of shocked horror on Dani’s face, and for a second, her question repeats in my head; ‘ _Can I trust you?_ ’ I don’t have an answer for her.

I’m suddenly snatched from the air and groan with pain as I feel my shoulder jerk upward and my body slams into the side of the building.

Dani saved me?

I look up and see her dangling halfway out of the window, her hand latched onto my forearm in a vice grip and her other preventing her from tumbling out of the window. Her face is red with effort and I hear the loud _CRASH_ as the last section falls to the hoard.

“Climb up!” Dani grunts, heaving me up as best as she can.

Dani saved me.

_Dani fucking saved me!_

I spur into action and grab her arm with my other hand and find a foothold in the wall, my shoulder screaming in complaint as I haul myself up with Dani’s help. We collapse onto a conveyer belt, both panting hard, and Dani hasn’t let go of my hand.

Inside is dark save for the light filtering in through the various windows, and the sound of the angry Biters is muffled, only the distant banging of them trying to get through the metal walls and doors. We sit up, bruised and scared, but alive.

“Nice catch…” I pant. As if reminding her of our hands, she promptly lets go and staggers to her feet.

“Come on, we don’t have much time to lose. There’s no telling what that Banshee might be doing.” She grunts with efforts, her wounds from the night before taking a toll on her healing body. I nod, struggling to my feet as well, and we make our way around the factory on the conveyer belt until we get to a main lobby type opening.

“Where to from here?” She asks, looking around with her gun drawn, on high alert. I take a moment to think, remembering which set of stairs we took to get to the basement.

“This way.” I wave her over to a large metal door with a sign so rusted we can’t make out what it says. It takes several shoves, but we eventually pop it open to a dark stairwell leading down. I dig my flashlight out of the bottle pouch of my bag and shine it down, quickly making my way down the steps with Dani right behind me. I try not to think about how much of a horror movie scene this is as we descend further into the darkness, and we eventually come across the remnants of my old camp.

 Our old sleeping bags are strewn about in the rush we were in to leave and there are broken arrows, arrow heads, empty bullet shells, and food wrappers. A painful memory surfaces when I see the large old blood stain against the generator, and my ankle starts to ache.

“You guys lived down here?” Dani whispers to me.

“For a week, yeah.” I reply, and she glances down at the stain.

“One of you were injured pretty bad it looks like.” She observes.

“Modified bear trap, no release. It sucked.” I explain quickly, not wanting to think about it anymore. There was too much blood. Part of the reason why there were so many Biters in the area was because of all the screaming.

She seems to sense my discomfort and doesn’t press the issue, following me the rest of the way down into the large dark room. Lined against the far wall are two huge generators and a busted terminal that was meant to start them up, and against the opposite wall is all of the dials that measure the pressure and all of that technical jazz we don’t have time to mess with.

“These generators work in tandem with one another, so we’ll need to start them at the same time to get the factory working. The generators themselves are really loud, so expect trouble when we turn them on.” I explain and quickly make my way one of them, Dani getting the other. “Turn the release right three times, then hit the button on my mark, alright?” I explain. She nods and we start to turn the wheels to the fuel-line. They’re rusted shut and squeal horribly when we start turning them, and I can hear movement above us.

“We have company, Cass.” Dani whispers once the fuel is running through the pipes.

_SSSSSCCCRRRRREEEEEEEEECCCCCCCHHHHHH!!!!!_

My blood runs cold. It’s already in the stairwell leading back up. I look over to Dani, whose lost all color in her face and she’s looking at me for direction, her stormy eyes pleading. I know she wants to run, but she heard my warning about it.

I’m glad she listened.

It’s dead silent in the basement save for the sound of the Banshee making its way down here to investigate the noise, the sound of its joints creaking and popping as it’s bare hands and feet slap against the stairs, the sound sending shivers down my spine.

This one is recently mutated it sounds like. The others were much more quiet than this.

I slowly raise my hand to the button and Dani mimics my movement, knowing that we’ll have to act fast once we activate the generators. I can see its ugly head poke out from around the stairwell, all blackened and stained with blood from animals, people, and other Biters. The thing about Banshee’s is that they have an appetite that nothing living can escape, especially not even other Banshee’s, but this one seems to be after fresh food.

Its twisted body soon comes crawling down around the stairs, leathery from the outdoor elements, and its arms and legs stretch and twist unnaturally like a monster out of a horror film. The skin on its face has mutated and stretched over the eyes and nose, blinding it to everything but taste and sound. It opens its mouth, revealing rows of yellow stained teeth filed, twisted, and pointed, its lips split in several places and stained with blood, old and new.

It bumps it’s head and limbs gently against the walls and scattered supplies, finding its way around the basement slowly but surely. Something behind me creaks, likely the Biters and wind from outside shifting the building, and the Banshee snaps it’s attention in the direction of the sound. There’s only one problem.

Dani is directly in its way.

I can see her shoulders heaving as she tries to get her breathing in check the closer the Banshee gets to her, and she bites her lip when it’s close enough that its breath wafts over her. Its head is directly over hers now and it’s only a matter of time before it figures out she’s right under it.

I have to do something.

She saved my life only minutes ago.

I can’t let her die.

She trusts me.

And right now, I trust her.

Here goes nothing.

“PUSH IT AND RUN!!!”

The Banshee snaps it’s head in my direction.

Dani snaps into motion.

We both slam our hands on the button as the Banshee lunges in my direction, mouth open and teeth pointed at my throat. The generators roar to life, sending plumes of smoke sputtering out of sections of the machine and I throw myself to the ground to dodge it.

“HURRY UP!” Dani shouts from the steps and the Banshee swivels it’s attention back to her.

“SHUT UP AND RUN!” I shout back and the Banshee throws one of its long arms my direction, missing me by a hair as I squeeze past it and the generator, hauling ass towards the stairs. It screeches after me, barely able to hear my footfalls over the hum of the surrounding machines. I reach Dani as the creature tries to figure out where we went. We take the stairs two and three at a time and throw the rusty door closed behind us.

“Move!” I shout, shoving Dani out of the way of a charging Biter that made its way into the factory. It tackles me instead and shoves me against the door of the basement, arms flailing to get a grip on me as its jaws snap at my throat in rapid fire, obviously starving and desperate for something to eat.

My hands slip as I try to make a grab for my knife and its momentum throws it face first into the metal door. It gives a yelp of pain as I stumble away and something else grabs me.

“Come on, I saw the control room this way!” Dani shouts as she grabs my arm and drags me away from the dazed Biter. I happen a glance towards the entrance of the lobby we’re leaving and see at leave four more Biters squeezing through a hole in the shattered glass of the main doors.

We haul ass back onto the factory floor as the lights flicker on and off, fueled by the generators in the basement, dodging around the heavy equipment and discarded scraps of lumber. The stairs to the control room have been destroyed by a forklift that looks as though it ran through the metallic steps, but it’s close enough to the control room landing that we can climb on top and jump to the landing, provided the Biters don’t get to us first.

Dani seems to have a similar idea and sprints ahead, sliding down to her knees and clasping her hands together.

“Hurry and get up there!” She shouts. I don’t waste any time as I secure my foot in her hands and she thrusts me up onto the forklift top. I stumble as I climb up, but quickly recover and go to help her up, but the Biters are quickly catching up with us. I pull out my bow and start firing to cover Dani as she scrambles to climb on top of the machine.

Luckily she’s much taller than me and doesn’t need my help in getting up.

I manage to plug three of the six biters that made their way into the factory but the others are trying to climb up onto the lift. I shoot one of them and the other makes a grab for my leg as Dani jumps over onto the platform. She turns to watch as the Biter takes a chunk out of my pants and I yelp in pain, kicking it with my other leg.

“Jump, damn it!” Dani shouts, leaning out with her hand to grab me as I jump forward, stumbling only a little as I make it to the platform. She drags me to my feet and we manage to make it into the control room with no more incidents and I collapse against the door as I slam it shut.

“Let me see your leg, Cass,” Dani demands, kneeling in front of me and reaching for her medical supplies.

I nudge her away. “Get the machines running first, we need to get the heat off the others.” I insist.

“Let me see your _fucking_ leg!” She forces, thrusting my torn pant leg up to assess the damage. The upper section of my boot protected my flesh from the bite, which I’m grateful for, but inches above the top of the boot is the fresh scar of the bear trap I stepped in weeks ago, the deep puncture marks prominent in my shin and calf.

They’re the reason for the bloodstains in the basement, and the reason for the Biters in the area.

“You…” her voice trails off as she glances up to my face in stunned silence.

“I told you. Modified bear trap, no release. Now get those machines running.” I instruct, rolling my torn pant leg back down. She slowly nods and gets to her feet, walking to the controls. After a brief look-over, she switches everything on and every machine on the factory floor rumbles to life, resuming the jobs they were doing before they were shut down.

I struggle to my feet, my legs burning from all the running, last night’s injuries, and I can feel a bruise starting to form from where the Biter bit me, but I force myself up regardless. I glance out and see several Biters flood into the factory floor, searching for the source of the commotion and I can hear the distant crashing of the Banshee trying to get out of the basement. Luckily the Biter’s have enough sense not to open the door for it.

“Where can we go from here?” Dani asks, backing away from the windows of the room and looking at me. I glance around the room, knowing that there has to be a map of fire escapes and happen to find it next to the opposite door of the room. There are red paths marked throughout the diagram, and the closest one to us takes us over the catwalk and to the second floor patio connecting the warehouse and break area.

“This way, it’ll put us almost directly above Josh and the others.” I inform.

“Do you think they’re still alright?” Dani asks, and I can tell that she’s beginning to question whether or not the plan actually worked. We’ve been gone for a few minutes with several delays, there’s a possibility that the others have either left without us, the Bites got into the warehouse before we turned on the machines, or they didn’t see the lights turn on and aren’t ready to move.

“We have to move.” I ignore her question and make my way to the door leading to the catwalk. Dani nods and follows after me as I gently open the door. She closes it softly so as not to get the attention of the dozens of Biters searching the factory floor and we crouch, quietly making our way around the edge of the room and to the door with the exit sign flickering with inconsistent electricity.

We open the door as quietly as we can, which is to say, not that quiet as it squeaks on its rusted hinges, and we exit out into the sunlight. The patio has several picnic tables, some of them overturned with bloodstains splattered against them, others are broken from the chaos that had ensued in the initial beginning of the infection. The patio is connected to the overhang at the front of the warehouse, inaccessible from the warehouse since there isn’t a platform we can climb onto from the inside. We can only hope that Josh got the picture and has the truck going.

We climb over the wooden railing of the patio and quickly make our way across the overhang and make it to the wide window at the front of the warehouse. Luckily, Josh and the others are still alright and the Biters have successfully made their way into the factory instead, leaving the clearing in front of the warehouse open for them to drive out into.

“Hey!” I shout to get their attention. Josh, Matt, and Sparrow poke their heads out of the windows of the truck and give out whoops of glee at our success and survival. “Go ahead and drive out! We’ll climb down out here!” I tell them. Josh shouts a confirmation and puts the truck in drive, jolting forward towards the doors.

“Let’s get down there and get out of here.” I nod to Dani as I back away from the window and start down the patio towards one of the semi-trailers parked just under it.

“Hey, Cassandra.” She calls. I pause and glance back at her. “Thanks for saving my ass back there.” I smile at her.

“Of course. We’re a team, right?” I reply. She pauses, considering her words.

“Yeah, I guess we are.” She replies as she walks down with me. “Don’t get comfortable with that though, you’re still a stranger to me.”

I chuckle. “Whatever you say, you nerd.”

She groans behind me as I make my way down the trailer and onto the cab of the semi. Sparrow unlocks the doors to the warehouse and Josh drives through them, pausing long enough for Dani, Sparrow, and I to climb back in, and he drives off.

“Are you two alright?” Josh asks as he drives us back down the road towards camp.

“We’re fine, Josh. The Banshee’s locked in the basement and the hoard is preoccupied in the factory looking for us.” Dani replies from the back.

The longer we drive down the road, the more something starts to nag at me. Yeah, the group of Biters at the lumber yard was huge, but there was a _lot_ more of them when we left. On top of that, there wasn’t a Banshee among them, either. Not even one that was mutating. And it takes weeks, even _months_ for a Biter to mutate that much. An icy feeling makes its way into my gut the closer to camp we get and I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something wrong. As we drive past, I happen to see a body on the side of the road and my fears are confirmed.

“Stop the truck.”

They don’t seem to hear me as Dani informs them of what happened at the factory.

“Stop the truck!” I shout as we make our way around the last bend in the road leading to the camp.

“What’s wrong?” Sparrow asks as we screech to a halt.

“Holy fuck…” Josh mutters from the driver’s seat. Everyone looks ahead to the front of the camp.

My mouth is dry and my limbs feel numb. People are running and screaming outside the gate, being chased by Biters. A few campers have guns from the armory and are trying their best to get rid of the Biters, but the gates are only halfway repaired, splintered off as though something ripped its way through.

“We gotta go!” Matt shouts from the passenger’s side.

“We’re not leaving them like this!” Sparrow argues from the back seat.

“What the fuck do you think we can do?! It’s overrun!” Matt argues.

I unbuckle my seatbelt and bolt out the door, Josh and Dani shouting after me.

My siblings are still in there.

My little brother and sister were left here alone as the main hoard blew through with no resistance. I don’t remember taking my bow out, but I start shooting Biters, looking wildly for my family.

“Octavia! Felix!” I shout for them as chaos continuously erupts all around me, Biters chasing down campers and campers trying and failing to get to safety. Small bodies litter the area around one of the cabins I know to be the school-house. I try not to think about how much they suffered before it finally ended for them, hoping against hope that my family hasn’t met the same end. The elderly are too slow and weak to defend against the Biters and they’re easily overpowered. Several campers try to help them, but their outnumbered horribly and many are still recovering from last night’s carnage.

A group of armored scouts fighting in front of The Den spot me and shout for me to quickly make my way to them, but a flurry of teeth and infection separates me from them. I can make out Jocelynn among them, trying her best to gun down the Biters that get too close to The Den, but there’s just too many bodies, too many chances for friendly fire. A loud explosion erupts from beside me and I see Dani has joined me, followed closely by Sparrow hacking his way forward with Josh and Matt following behind him.

“Come on, we have to make an opening!” Josh shouts, tagging a few Biters standing between us and The Den.

“I’m on it!” Sparrow shouts and rushes forward, drawing his handkerchief up over his mouth and nose as he hacks and slashes his way through. I join in with my bow, letting loose arrow after arrow into the skulls and necks of attacking Biters. Dani, Josh, and Matt join in, getting the ones that Sparrow and I miss, and I run out of arrows just as we make it through.

“Leon and the others are inside trying to get the evacuation going!” Jocelynn shouts.

“Are my brother and sister with him?!” I demand. Jocelynn nods at my answer and relief floods over me.

“We’re taking the RV and getting out of here! Gather as many supplies as you can from inside and get there or we’re leaving you behind!” Jocelynn orders. We all nod and quickly make our way into the chaos inside. A few scouts are rushing about with armfuls of weapons from the basement, packing them into large bags and handing them off to someone else so they can grab more. I catch sight of Felix and Octavia rushing past, each with a bag of provisions in their arms making their way towards the side door.

“Octavia! Felix!” I shout and rush over.

“Cass!” They shout back, hastily setting the food down and crashing into me, crushing me in tight hugs.

“The hoard got here a few hours after you all left! It took us by surprise and we’ve been trying to evacuate ever since!” Felix informs me.

“Where’s Leon?” I ask them and he comes into sight almost as soon as I ask.

“Thank God you all made it back! Hurry up, we have to leave!” Leon orders to us, his body armor on and already splattered with blood. I let my siblings go to grab the food they dropped as they wait at the door. Some other scouts hand us provisions and weapons and nudge us towards the side door leading out to where the RV is parked next door. The others gather around with freshly stocked weapons in hand, ready to blast our way to the escape vehicle.

“GO!” Leon orders. A scout shoves the door open and takes the first shot at a Biter and rushes forward. Felix and Octavia are next as they follow the scout out and I’m close behind, but after a few more shots, the scout’s gun jams at the wrong time and he’s tackled to the ground by a heavyset Biter. Jocelynn and her team from up front have joined us as well and they start clearing a path, but one by one her team is quickly whittled down the further we all get. Leon manages to push towards the RV first, rushing in and getting to the driver’s seat. He revs up the engine as Matt hurls himself inside. Josh makes it next, throwing his supplies inside before lunging in as Leon gets the RV moving forward.

Panic starts to rise in my throat as Leon drives. My siblings’ make it next as Josh grabs and yanks them inside one by one. Dani and Jocelynn leap in ahead of me and my lungs start to burn as they drag Sparrow inside right after. A few Biters are right on my tail and I’m too slow to shake it off. The RV is starting to pick up speed as Leon takes it to the ruined gates.

“Get her in here!” I hear Leon shout from the driver’s seat. I’m running as fast as I can to keep up with the RV, but I’m quickly slowing down, exhaustion taking over even as adrenalin is flooding my senses. Josh appears in the doorway of the RV, his hand outstretched for me, but my arms are full with medical supplies.

“Just drop them and jump!” He shouts, flailing his hand in attempt to encourage me to go faster.

No, we need these supplies. Dani only has a limited amount with her and she needs as much as she can to be able to patch everyone up. I throw the supplies at Josh, who whips about to catch it, tumbling backwards as the RV hits a bump. I’m too far away to jump, and the Biters behind me aren’t making it any easier. With the carnage around me, it’s hard to think of any plan that will result in me getting out of this alive, especially as more Biters join in to chase me down.

Felix and Octavia appear in the doorway, both with their hands reached out and shouting for me to jump. A couple of the windows of the RV open up and Josh, Dani, and Jocelynn have their guns at the ready, shooting Biters as they inch closer to me.

“Just jump!” Octavia shouts at me, pure terror written across her face. I can’t just let them watch as these Biter’s rip me to shreds, I’m not that kind of sister. I can’t let them suffer like that.

So I jump.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that escalated quickly


	6. Chapter Five: Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group argues about what to do next, and Matt is not a happy camper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Matt's a dick, pass it on

We’re on the road for at least an hour before anyone speaks up, too shaken by what had happened. I don’t want to know what’s going through everyone’s heads right now, but Matt speaks up and makes it very clear what he’s thinking.

“I told you we should have left while we could.” He growls.

“No one was well enough for an evacuation after last night’s attack. The same thing would have happened anyway.” Jocelynn snaps back and Sparrow nods his head solemnly.

“No, we would have been _long_ gone by now, but since apparently _staying_ in a death trap and sending out people to fix a broken gate is _so_ much more important, there’s now more people dead than there would have been, and we have _nothing_ to rebuild with!” He snaps back and turns to me. “What the _fuck_ happened back there?!” He erupts, stomping over to stand nearly nose to nose with me. My siblings raise to my defense, but I wave them down.

If I have to, I _will_ kill him.

“Matthew, what are you talking about?” Josh speaks up.

“Everything was all hunky-dory up until these fuckers came up,” He gestures to my siblings and me, not breaking eye contact with me as he does so. “and on _top_ of that, this bitch right here,” he shoves me into the cabinets. “didn’t tell us that there would be a _possibility_ that the hoard would have broken up like that!”

“Back off, Matt!” Sparrow growls.

“Or what, sword boy?!” He glares at Sparrow. “You’re gonna cut me down to your size? You can’t look at this and think it’s all just a coincidence that all of this bullshit happened _right_ when they show up, and she just _happens_ to have information about those infected fuckers!”

“She risked her life to help you assholes and you want to _blame_ her for what happened?!” Octavia shouts, getting into Matt’s face.

Matt shoves Octavia and she stumbles back right as the RV hits a bump, making her trip and she falls, slamming the side of her head in the cabinet before collapsing with a pained grunt.

Felix reacts before I do, slamming his fist into Matt’s nose and sending his backwards onto the couch. My little brother might be the youngest of us all, but he’s a lot stronger physically than most of us. He doesn’t move to punch Matt again, but he stands over him, ready to make a move in case Matt tries anything else. I crouch down beside my sister and ease her to a sitting position as Josh and Sparrow ease Felix away from Matt as he sits up himself, wiping blood from his mouth and broken nose.

“Listen here you beaner motherfucker,” Matt threatens as he sits up.

“I suggest you choose your next words very carefully, Murphy.” Dani growls, stepping between my brother and Matt. Matt glares at Dani incredulously.

“This fucking _bastard_ just attacked me!” He exclaims.

“You could have killed my sister!” Felix defends.

“I just gave her a fucking _nudge_ , the bitch got in my face!”

“THAT IS ENOUGH!!” Leon roars from the driver’s seat and the RV screeches to a halt in the middle of the road. We all quiet down at his tone as he unbuckles his seatbelt and pushes himself up to march up to us.

“What had happened today was a horrible tragedy, and pinning it on _anybody_ present will _not_ help the situation! Murphy, stay away from the Cage siblings and keep your _goddamn_ mouth shut! Felix, stand down and help your sisters!” He orders, his face red with rage and stress. Numb with tension, he takes a few breaths, pinching the bridge of his nose to calm down.

“Jocelynn, Sparrow, check the perimeter. Make sure there aren’t any Biters in the area and report back.” Leon orders. The two give curt nods and quickly make their exits as Leon looks to Dani. Knowing what he’s going to say, she kneels down next to me to examine my sister, who’s groaning in pain and holding the side of her head, her hand covered in blood.

“Josh, take Murphy and scout ahead. See what’s available to us on the road.” Leon sighs. Josh gives a quick salute and nods for Matt to follow him out of the RV door. Once it’s just my siblings, Dani, Leon, and I, Leon removes his hand from his face.

“How is she, Danielle?” He asks.

“Mild concussion, might need stitches.” She reports, taking out a flashlight and testing her pupal dilation.

“I’m gonna kill him…” Felix growls.

“You will do no such thing.” I order and Felix looks at me, perplexed. “Matt isn’t ours to deal with and escalating the situation more than it already is will only make things worse for everyone. Besides, it’s not like we’re going to be around for much longer anyway.”

“You’re still intent on leaving?” Dani asks. I don’t know if I can hear a hint of sadness in her voice or fatigue.

I’m going to go with fatigue.

“We’ve troubled you guys enough, and on top of that, we have something we need to do ourselves. Sticking around will only complicate things.” I explain.

“Are you sure about this?” Leon asks. I look down at my siblings.

Octavia is sitting with her back against the cabinets as Dani examines her head. Blood is gushing from the impact, but judging from Dani’s face, it’s nothing too serious; it probably looks worse than it really is, but I’m not any less pissed about the situation. Felix is standing by, hovering over Dani’s shoulder to see what she’s muttering about, concern etched into his face. It’s hard to believe that, in such a short time, my baby brother has seen so much violence and has been through so much that he’s not squeamish around blood anymore.

I know that staying with them will probably be safer, minus Matt, but we can’t drag them into our affairs, especially with everything that’s happened so far. It wouldn’t be fair.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” I reply. Leon gives a long nod, considering my answer.

“At least stay until tomorrow morning.” He starts.

“I was planning on it. I don’t want Octavia moving around too much until she’s ready.” I interrupt whatever he was about to say, already intending on resting for a while.

Leon pulls the RV off to the side of the road to get us into the cover of the trees surrounding the old road and Jocelynn and Sparrow make it back just as he parks.

“No Biters in the area, but there’s plenty to hunt.” Sparrow reports, then examines all of our expressions. “What’s going on?” He asks.

“My siblings and I will be leaving for Atlanta in the morning.” I tell him.

“Wait, you were serious about that?” Jocelynn asks, taken aback.

“We were never going to stick around for long, you know. We have important business to take care of.” I explain.

“Yeah, but…” Jocelynn’s voice carries away with her thoughts and she looks down to Dani as though she’ll change my mind. Dani might be cute – I might even go so far as to say mildly attractive – but she’s not cute enough to make me change my mind. I am sad to be leaving, especially since everyone but Matt has been so kind to us, but we can’t drag them into family matters. I won’t be able to forgive myself if they got hurt because of us.

Not like the others.

“We’ll wait here until Josh and Murphy come back from scouting.” Leon speaks. “In the meantime, you all should get some rest while you can. It’s been a busy two days.”

We all nod, knowing he’s right. My body still aches from both last night and everything that had happened today, and my mind is reeling with new information – two mutants in two days. I want to know how the Widowmaker’s got a hold of a Berserker, and what a Banshee was doing with a hoard. Neither of those mutants are known to travel in packs, or are easily sedated and lured. Could the Biter’s be advancing again?

I shudder at the thought as Dani stands up, helping Octavia to her feet. “She has a mild concussion, so she’s not going anywhere anytime soon.” Dani informs me, letting Octavia sit on the couch to rest.

“Thank you. I’ll make sure she rests tonight.” I reply, going to grab pain medicine from one of the bags. Dani claps a stern hand on my shoulder, stopping me from my search.

“For the record, I think it’s a bad idea for you to leave so soon. There could be underlining symptoms that could make her condition worse.” She warns.

When we first met, she tells me she doesn’t care, now she’s telling me how to take care of my family? Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s pause this and break it down for a moment. Dani has made it pretty clear that we aren’t friends, and even went so far as to express how much she distrusts me and my siblings, on several occasions, even at the lumber yard. But, now here she is, telling me that it’s a bad idea to leave?

Okay, sure, let’s just roll with this. I’m too tired to argue with her right now.

“We’ve been through worse. We’ll be fine.” I tell her. Dani’s eyes briefly flicker down to my leg as I say this and she sighs and looks away, and I can’t help the furiation that boils its way through. “You should take care of your people. Let me take care of mine.” I add curtly and walk over to my sister to make sure she’s alright. I can see Dani bite her bottom lip in frustration but I currently don’t care; she can mind her own business.

“That guy’s a dick…” Octavia mumbles, referring to Matt, as she leans heavily on my shoulder as I sit next to her.

“Yeah, he’s definitely something else, that’s for sure.” I reply halfheartedly as Felix takes a seat on the other side of our sister.

“That’s certainly the nicer version of what _I_ was going to call him.” Felix adds.

“What were _you_ going to call him, tough guy?” I tease.

“Dick-Wad, Fuck-Ass, Douche-Canoe, Limp Noodle. I have quite an arsenal built up from you guys.” He lists off.

“Douche-Canoe? Who’d you hear that from?” Octavia chuckles.

“Uncle Tommy. I heard him call the electric guy that several years ago when he came to fix the lights.” Felix smiles.

“I remember that, actually. The lights in the house were always flickering and you guys thought it was ghosts haunting the place,” I laugh.

“You convinced us that there _were_ ghosts after we saw that one creepy movie! The one with the haunted mirror!” Felix accuses.

“Yeah, well, if you also remember correctly, the lights went out in the bathroom while I was in the middle of a shower, and I screamed so loud that Uncle Tommy thought someone was breaking into the house!” I add and the three of us laugh at the memory.

“He called that electrician guy later that day to come and check it out, but the electrician guy just kept pushing it back, day by day for nearly a month. When he finally came to check out the house, half of the wiring was all chewed up by mice in the walls.” Felix chuckles.

“Didn’t he try to say that Uncle Tommy was making the house an ‘unsafe living environment for the children’ after that guy nearly electrocuted himself?” Octavia asks.

“Yeah, but that was partially my fault,” I laugh nervously. “I accidentally turned on the lights because no one told me he was at the house when I got back from my first day of work. Oh _man_ was that guy pissed! He was yelling at Uncle Tommy for what felt like _hours_!” I chuckle.

“He brought his daughter to help too, I remember. You were trying so hard to impress her after you nearly killed her dad!” Octavia adds. My face goes red at the memory. That’s right, I remember Marie. She was one of the first girl’s I ever had a crush on.

But no one else needs to hear the details of _that_ cluster-fuck!

“I was trying to _calm her down_ and stop her from calling the cops, remember? _Felix_ was the one trying to hit on her!” I clarify.

“Was not!” He argues, his face going as red as mine.

“Oh please, you were all like ‘Marie, would you like me to cook something for you while you wait? I’m an awesome chief’!” I mimic my brother’s awkward swoon and Octavia and I laugh as his face gets redder. We finally settle down enough to sit comfortably, chuckling every once in a while as we recall the memory. Felix had made omelets for everyone, Octavia was going through her awkward goth phase and trying to be as anti-social as possible, and I was trying my best to smooth over the situation.

It’s weird.

The more I think of what happened before everything _happened_ , the harder is it to remember the details of each memory. What color was Marie’s hair? Was it straight? Curly? Were her eyes green or brown? Was her dad a tall, lanky man? Or was he a shorter, portly, balding man?

Did Uncle Tommy have longer or shorter hair then?

The more I think about it, the more each answer seems both correct and wrong.

I don’t realize how quiet the RV has gotten as the three of us sit together, and we can all feel the weight of those very same questions resting over us.

“I miss Uncle Tommy…” Octavia mutters. I sling my arm around her shoulders and pull her head gently into my neck.

“I know, O. I miss him too.” I reply.

“Do you remember when his birthday was?” Felix asks, leaning on Octavia.

I feel bad that I don’t, and Felix knows what my and Octavia’s silence mean.

“Neither do I…” He nearly whispers it.

I didn’t notice that everyone had already left the RV and that it was just the three of us inside. We finally had a little privacy, so we took to quietly resting and making sure each of us were alright.

After what seemed like several hours, I hear voices outside, the sound of Josh and Matt coming back. Glancing out the window, I realize that it really _had_ been several hours as night begins to fall.

“…isn’t too far away, and the road seems clear.” I can hear Josh saying.

“Any Biters?” Leon asks, and when silence answers him, I stiffen up until Leon answers again. “Good.” I relax. “Get inside and get some rest. Josh, you’ll be on second watch in a few hours.”

“Got it.” A few seconds pass and the door to the RV opens up and Josh steps inside, Matt following behind. When he catches sight of my siblings and I, he rolls his eyes and marches past us all to the room in the back of the RV, slamming it closed behind him.

“Sorry about him,” Josh sighs, closing the RV door and sitting across from us.

“It’s fine. We’re leaving tomorrow morning anyway.” I reply and Josh looks hurt for a moment.

“I see. It won’t be the same without you guys, that’s for sure.” Josh replies with a sincere smile. There’s a knock on the RV door as Leon opens it up and pops his head through.

“Cassandra, might I have a word for a moment?” He asks. I glance at my siblings, who are dozing off beside me, and sigh. I nudge my sister off of me and stand, stretching a little as I follow Leon outside. Dani, Sparrow, and Jocelynn are heading into the RV, Dani not sparing me a second glance as she passes me, while Sparrow and Jocelynn me me a small wave.

“What’s up?” I ask Leon once the door closes.

He gestures out to the woods. “Walk with me, please.”

Concern and suspicion ebbs its way into my mind as I take a tentative step forward, Leon walking beside me. He’s quiet for a while as we walk deeper into the woods, and when the RV is out of sight, he speaks again.

“Why are you so set on going to Atlanta?” He asks me.

Not this again.

“I already told you, our mom is there.” I groan.

“I heard that. But you also know it’s been three, nearly four years since this outbreak occurred. There’s a large possibility that she isn’t there anymore.”

“I already know the possibilities, it’s not going to deter me from going.”

“So you’re bringing your siblings cross country into a city full of Biters and raiders on the off chance that your mother may be alive?”

“Why do you care so much?!”

I stop and whirl to face him, tired of his probing and questions. He’s quiet for several long seconds before he replies.

“Because I know that you’re lying.”

“No I’m not.” I start to walk away from him, back to the RV.

“Cassandra, I’m not your enemy. You bringing your family to an infested war zone on a pipe-dream is perhaps the most reckless thing you can do for them.” He states.

“It’s none of your damn business!”

“There’s something you’re not being honest with me about, Cassandra. Your sister is injured and the three of you haven’t had a decent meal in what looks to be weeks. I won’t allow you drag them into danger without a viable answer.” He demands.

“What are you gonna do? Lock us in the bathroom to stop us from leaving?” I sneer.

“You’re siblings will stay here with us while you leave to do whatever it is you feel so necessary to do.”

My heart sinks.

“You can’t do that.”

“That is not up for you to decide. You might believe that what you are doing is right, but whatever you plan on doing is dangerous and I won’t allow it.”

I glare at him defiantly. I don’t care that he knew my family, he doesn’t understand the importance of why we have to leave. But now he’s threatening to separate my family and he’s backing me into a corner. There isn’t much of a choice anymore, and I find myself hating Leon. I already know that whatever answer I give him, he’ll try to separate my siblings and I, unless if I swear not to go, but I can’t do that either.

I finally give in.

“We need to go to deliver something to her, alright?” I sigh, glaring at him.

“Oh? And what are you delivering?” He asks, an eyebrow raised. I dig through my pockets until I find the stupid locket and hold it out for him to see. At first, he looks confused, and I can’t blame him. I am, too. But then realization dons on him and he straightens up.

“Do you know what this is?” He asks, his voice taut.

“A stupid fucking locket that doesn’t open or break.” I deadpan.

“Did your mother tell you to deliver this?”

“I wouldn’t be doing it if she didn’t.”

“Now isn’t the time for joking around, Cassandra. Did she personally tell you to deliver it?”

“No, our uncle did before he disappeared! Why, what’s so special about?”

“Does anyone else know about this locket besides your siblings and I?”

“No, would you answer my fucking questions for once?! God damn!”

“Cassandra, I need you to listen. Tell no one else about this locket, do you understand me?”

“Leon-”

“Do you understand me?”

His face is twisted with concern and worry and _fear_ and for once I’m actually scared of this thing.

“Y-yeah, I understand.”

“Not even Danielle and the others can know.”

“I get it, but what’s so special about it?”

Leon sighs and moves my hand with the locket closer to me, urging me to hide it again.

“There isn’t much I can tell you about it, but know that this locket holds valuable information about the infection.”

My heart sinks.

It does _what_?

“W-what do you mean?” I venture.

“Your mother didn’t tell me much about them, but there are other lockets just like yours. If Thomas was supposed to bring it to the CDC, then that means there are others who are out looking for them. It’s in your best interest to keep its existence hidden, and any knowledge you might have on it as well.”

“Who-what others? Who’s looking for the lockets?”

“I don’t know the answer to that, Cassandra, which makes this situation dangerous. I hope you understand.”

We stand in silence as the locket in my hands seems to get heavier and heavier the more I think about what’s going on.

It holds information about the infection, but it’s not the only one. If it has information on the infection, and Uncle Tommy had it _before_ the infection even started out…

I gasp.

“The infection was on purpose!” I exclaim and Leon quickly shoves me forward, away from the RV and we continue walking.

“Not so loud, Cassandra!”

“You knew about it?!”

“I had a hunch, but I never _knew_ , not until just now.”

“This absolutely changes everything. I have to go, now.”

“Cassandra, I would highly recommend against that idea.”

“And do what instead?! What would you have me do, Leon?!”

“I would have you calm down and rested before you decide to shout to the hills what you have in your possession!”

I pause. He’s right. I’m tired –we’re all tired really – but I’m especially exhausted. A _lot_ has happened in the past forty-eight hours, and my body _still_ hurts from when the Berserker tossed me like a rag doll and from Dani catching me from a three story fall. All at once, my wounds all seem to ache, reminding me of just how much I’ve been pushing myself lately, and my leg throbs.

My exhaustion and pain must reflect on my face because Leon looks at me sympathetically and sighs.

“The only way I’m going to allow you take your siblings to go to Atlanta is if I accompany you.” He says with finality. I might not know much about Leon, but I know enough that arguing with him is as effective as arguing with a brick wall. At least he and my sister share that in common.

“Fine, whatever, just…” I sigh, turning to look back at the RV. “Just let me do this, alright? They’ve been through so much and I want to get this over with as soon as possible so we can finally find someplace to _live_. We’re tired of running.” I say. He pats my head and I forget for just a moment just how small I am. I must seem like a child now, fussing over what I want to do and throwing a fit when it doesn’t happen the way I envision.

We walk back to the RV in silence. Jocelynn and Matt are standing outside on guard, and when they notice us walking up, Jocelynn nods in greeting. We step inside and Dani is checking on Octavia, making sure that everything is fine with her concussion while Josh, Sparrow, and Felix are quietly talking. Leon gestures for me to step inside before him and I do so as he calls for Jocelynn and Matt to come inside for a moment.

“What’s going on?” Felix asks in greeting, standing to meet me.

“Leon will explain in a moment.” I reply tiredly and slump onto the couch near where Dani is sitting cross-legged with her elbow perched on the couch. She makes a small sound of displeasure at the action as she couch shifts under her elbow, but she doesn’t move from her perch. A few seconds pass and Josh and Matt enter with Leon trailing behind. Matt takes a seat at the kitchenette table as far from my siblings and I as he can get while Josh leans against the closed door to the back room. Sparrow takes a seat in the lazy-boy, his sword leaned against it.

“Alright, with Camp Cottonwood gone, we need to figure out where to go from here.” Leon starts, getting everyone’s attention. “Joshawa and Murphy scouted further up the road and reported a small town up ahead where we can resupply and get fuel for the RV, and perhaps find a state or country map.”

“Where do we go from there?” Dani inquires.

“We head to Atlanta with Cassandra, Octavia, and Felix.”

There are _several_ mixed emotions running through the RV right now. Matt is pissed beyond belief, even if he isn’t saying anything about it. He’s clearly displeased with the fact that he’ll have to be around my family and me much longer than anticipated.

Octavia looks pleased, and I know it’s because she like’s Dani and thinks that the longer she’s around, the more Dani will like her back. I fight the urge to roll my eyes at my disaster sister.

Felix takes one look at Matt and his face hardens. I know he’s less than pleased to be around Matt, especially when he hurt our sister the way he did, but unless if Matt is the one who leaves, we’re stuck with him.

Dani gives me a side eye with an emotion I can’t really decipher – anger? Suspicion? Confusion? – and looks back at Leon with her mask of indifference back in place. She’s such a weird puzzle to figure out.

Josh and Jocelynn both look happy that we’re sticking together as a group and they both give my siblings and I excited smiles. I’m glad that _someone_ seems happy about these arrangements at least.

Lastly, I can hear Sparrow let out a soft ‘Nice’ of acceptance, and I’m not entirely sure if it was said in a good connotation or not. I’d like to think that we aren’t at odds, but since we’ve had limited contact, I can’t really tell.

“Why are we doing that?” Matt drawls.

“Because we leave none of our own behind, and since Cassandra is set on Atlanta, we will go with her.” Leon answers.

“Yeah, cool, that’s noble and all, but like, _why_? What’s in Atlanta for _us_?” Matt pushes.

I don’t really have an answer for him that would put him on board with this, and I honestly couldn’t care less about whether or not he wanted to come, but my conversation with Leon echoes freshly.

_Tell no one about the locket. Not even the others._

“Before the radio in The Den broke down a few weeks ago, I’ve been catching transmissions from Atlanta.” Leon spoke up.

“Oh, and you didn’t think to tell us about this _before_ the camp got steam-rolled twice?!” Matt exclaims.

“It wasn’t imperative knowledge considering that, before-hand, we were well fortified. The transmissions were unclear as well, so for all I know they could have been distress signals.” Leon explains.

“A backup plan to the camp would have been nice to have in our pocket!” Matt exclaims.

“I hate to admit it, but Matt has a point,” Dani breathes, distaste clear on her face.

She’s actually _agreeing_ with him?!

Sparrow shares my thoughts it seems.

“What the Hell do you mean by that?!” He exclaims, finally speaking up.

“The camp was running low on supplies weeks before the latest raid, and people were beginning to doubt their safety, especially since the Widowmaker’s have been making non-stop pushes against us. An evacuation point would have helped save more people and cut our losses.” Dani explains.

“Exactly. We could have at least had more guards and scouts informed and put them on the RV first. Instead, we’re stuck with following these hapless fuck-wits because Leon’s hero complex is starting to get the better of him.” Matt grumbles, not even bothering to keep his displeasure hidden.

“Matthew,” Dani warns, and Matt just tosses his head in her direction with a mocking smile on his face.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Dani. Since this trio of loose cannons showed up, there’s been more trouble than we can handle. How do you know that they aren’t the ones who led us all into a trap in that lumber yard? Or even better, how do you know they haven’t been spying on the camp and been feeding information to the Widowmaker’s?” Matt demands.

“They’re clean-”

“You know just as well as I do that the Widowmaker’s often blackmail people outside the group to do their dirty work when they want to keep things swept under the rug. What makes you so sure you can trust them, huh?”

Hello, red flag.

“How do you know that the Widowmaker’s use outside resources like that?” I demand, and both Felix and Octavia perk up, catching onto my thought process. Matt pauses to glare back at me, giving nothing away.

“They’ve done it a few times before; send a rugged looking survivor they found on the side of the road into a camp that turns away _no_ strangers, and have them do as much damage as they possibly can before anyone finds out.” He says.

“He’s right. We’ve caught a few people like that coming into camp. Some of them claimed that the Widowmaker’s captured their friends or family and needed a place to stay; others were just survivors that got caught up at the wrong place at the wrong time.” Dani adds.

“Exactly. So, once again, how do you know that you can trust these people?” Matt demands, glaring back at Dani more intensely. Dani doesn’t spare him a look, instead looking right at me with a neutral face, her blue-gray eyes boring into my very soul it seems.

After everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been through, she still has to think about-

“Because she saved my life.”

Oh.

That’s new.

She continues.

“She had several opportunities to fight back, leave, and abandon us, but instead she stuck around to help us.”

“Because her _siblings were here!_ ” Matt exclaims, clearly exasperated, and both my siblings groan.

“Do you really think we can’t take care of ourselves?!” Octavia demands.

“No offense, _Princess_ , but that coming from someone with a head injury answers your question for you.” Matt mocks.

“ _YOU FUCKING PUSHED ME YOU ASS-MUNCHER!”_ Felix has to hold our sister back from getting up and beating Matt to a pulp. Were it not for the concussion, I would have let her.

“Learn to stay out of other people’s business, then.” Matt waves her off and Octavia’s faces goes red with rage.

“Murphy, what did I say about the Cage siblings?” Leon demands and Matt rolls his eyes.

“Whatever. Fuck this, you want to go to Atlanta, fine, let’s fucking go to Atlanta. I got nothing else better to do but die anyway.” Matt stands up and storms out of the RV, slamming the door closed behind him. Leon sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Get some sleep, everyone. We have a long day tomorrow. I’ll talk to him and take first watch.” Leon orders, following Matt out of the RV.

Everyone sighs once the two of them leave and I don’t have the energy to laugh at it.

“Well, that was fun and exciting.” Josh speaks up.

“Do you really trust us?” The question comes out before I have time to think it over and stop myself, and Dani knows it’s directed at her. She sighs and stands up, dusting off her pants.

“Don’t make me regret it. You’re on the right road getting me to trust you, but you’re still a _long_ way from getting it completely. Don’t fuck it up.” She says.

At least she’s honest. I never expected to be traveling with a group again and, to be fair, it feels nice to have other people around. It’s…

Refreshing.

The last group we were with didn’t last long, imploding in on itself with infighting, disagreements, and too many secrets. My siblings and I left as soon as we could before they could drag us down with them. I can see the same thing happening with everyone here, but it seems different somehow, and I don’t know if it’s a ‘good’ kind of different.

Leon has his head screwed on straight at least, Dani is right to distrust us, Jocelynn is nice enough but keeps her distance, which is smart, and Josh and Sparrow don’t seem to be afraid to take anyone down if they make the wrong move. Matt seems to be the only issue with this group so far, but I still can’t shake the uneasy feeling I have about everyone.

“Come on, Josh, let’s set up the beds.” Dani’s voice snaps me to attention and I look up. Dani walks to the driver’s cab, but instead of going into the cab, she reaches for the wall piece and pulls it up, revealing a small alcove with a made up bed situated above the driver’s cabin. Josh wanders to the door of the back room and opens it up, revealing a remodeled bedroom with two bunkbeds, one on either side of the small room. Sparrow starts taking apart the kitchenette table and lays the surface flat against both seats, taking out a long rolled up cushion and laying it on the table surface, converting it into a bed.

Dani approaches my siblings and me on the couch. “Up.” She says, gesturing for us to move. We scramble out of her way as she grabs the underside of the couch and pulls it up. I’m amazed to see it transform into a bunkbed in one swift movement, but she scooched me aside as she leans over the bottom bunk, grabs something under the mattress, and starts to heave. The bottom bunk transforms from a twin bed into a king sized bed, and I’m amazed at how many beds they’ve managed to fit into this RV.

“That’s pretty sweet.” Octavia mutters.

“Pick your beds, we’ll likely be keeping the sleeping arrangements.” Dani orders.

“I call the spare room!” Sparrow exclaims and dashes off into the back room.

“You can’t keep a whole room to yourself, Sparrow!” Josh complains, following after him.

“Then I get one of the top bunks!” Sparrow interjects, leaping onto one of the top beds. Dani sighs at the two of them and sits on the table-bed across from the couch-bed, rubbing her eyes and laying back.

“Boys.” Jocelynn shakes her head and climbs on the top bunk of the couch-bed.

“Oh, oh, we get the big bed!” Octavia blurted, toppling onto the king sized bottom bunk, but grunting with pain as she lands. “Ow, what the Hell is this thing made of? Concrete?”

“It’s supposed to hold a lot of people, not be comfortable. Just be glad we have a bed for the second night in a row.” I reply, sitting on the bed, glad that at least we aren’t sleeping outside. I can hear Matt’s angry shouting outside and Leon trying to calm him down, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Dani must see the worry on my face.

“Don’t worry about them, they’ve been at odds since Matt came to the camp. It’s all bark.” Dani said.

“You don’t think Matt will try to do something to him?” I ask, glancing at my sister. Dani also casts a look at Octavia, unsure.

“Not on purpose. He might be an arrogant, hot-headed, selfish prick,”

“Not helping, Dani.”

“But he’s not stupid enough to endanger us on purpose. He knows that he’d be the first to be blamed if anything happened to anyone, especially with what just happened.” She advises. In the short amount of time I’ve known them, I can’t be completely sure about that, but I trust – hesitantly to say – Dani enough to believe her.

“Besides,” Jocelynn adds. “Matt just wants what’s best for the group, even if he _is_ insensitive and brash about it.”

“You don’t think he’s dangerous?” Felix asks.

“Everyone is dangerous nowadays,” Dani answers. “Just try not to antagonize him and I can keep him in line.”

It’s comforting to know that, despite everything, they seem to be on our side, but no amount of reassurance will tell me that Matt isn’t a dangerous person.

The door swings open and both Matt and Leon step in. Matt stares dead ahead as he marches to the back room where Josh and Sparrow have claimed their bunks, not giving anyone a second glance.

“Lights out, everyone, and bundle up. It’s going to be a chilly night.” Leon says, shutting off the RV and beginning his watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MATT'S A DICK, PASS IT ON

**Author's Note:**

> The point of view changes to first-person for the rest of the story. I decided to do third to add detail in a sort of 'spectator' perspective


End file.
